Animals Review: A Tightly Wound, Aggressive, and Ruthless Political Crime Thriller

The new Netflix film Animals is filmmaker Ben Affleck‘s sixth film behind the camera, marking a return to the crime thriller genre that made him a household name as a director. Gone Baby Gone was a gritty and gripping surprise, with a towering performance from his brother Casey Affleck. He followed that success with The Town, a film audiences embraced as a new classic.

However, Animals, streaming on Netflix October 9th, is different. Gone are the salt-stained, working-class, weathered streets of Boston, traded in for the sunburnt sidewalks of the City of Angels. While the characters of Affleck’s previous films hardly ever walk around with a well-kempt facade, his new film has nearly everyone looking beautiful, accomplished, and photograph-ready.

However, as the story progresses, we find each character carrying shameful secrets of pride, greed, lust, envy, and the kind of gluttony that may make Nathaniel Hawthorne blush. By the time we reach its conclusion, which has plenty of bite, we realize it’s the secrets these characters carry that captivate us most, which is what great writing is all about.

What is Netflix’s Animals about?

The story follows Mark Kimball (Academy Award winner Ben Affleck), a Los Angeles mayoral candidate whose campaign hinges on the Latino vote and who trails in the polls by four points. After consulting his campaign manager, Sam Allison (The Walking Dead‘s Steven Yeun), Kimball plans to close the gap with a speech in the heart of that demographic.

Mark’s wife, Abigail (Kerry Washington), keeps the peace at home, growing resentful that Mark’s political ambitions have taken priority over her and their son, Denny. The family’s nanny, Cecilia (Adriana Paz), pressures Abigail to help her husband Ramon (Luis Gerardo Méndez) find work, even though his undocumented status is a political issue for the Kimball campaign.

However, their worlds come crashing down when Denny is kidnapped. With their son’s life hanging in the balance, the abductors call Mark, demanding seven million dollars, far more money than the family can afford. In the room, Sam offers to help by connecting them with a shadowy operative fixer (Gillian Anderson) who will foot the bill, but at a steep price.

Netflix’s Animals Review

Affleck co-wrote the script with Connor O. McIntyre (Itch) and Billy Ray (The Hunger Games, Captain Phillips), crafting a screenplay that steadily builds tension, loosens its grip, then tightens the screws all over again. The script accomplishes this feat by taking a bold and brave step with a twist at the end of the first act you rarely see in a hostage thriller that you won’t see coming.

Animals achieves a level of emotional, moral, and narrative complexity that most genre films sacrifice for cheap twists and faux suspense. As soon as the movie takes a turn, all the facades, bullsh*t, and carefully guarded language begin to melt away. The central characters turn verbally vicious, simmering with resentment and boiling over as they abandon all restraint.

What’s more, most of the film takes place in closed rooms, where the characters are aggressive. They say what they feel, without filters, which is hardly cinematic but makes the dialogue just as sharp and blistering as the central conflict. While I would call Anderson’s role cartoonish, it is menacing. And while I would call Washington’s role a cliché, you can still see the masked vulnerability and inner strength that is magnetic.

Is Netflix’s Animals worth watching

However, it is Ben Affleck’s searing turn, fueled by rage, inadequacy, and humiliation, that gives the star a role he can really sink his teeth into. Mark Kimball is a powder keg, and this is easily Affleck’s best performance since Gone Girl. Sometimes a film makes you wonder what a man will do with nothing to lose, but here, he has everything to lose.

Animals is about human instinct and political desperation, making his performance as unpredictable as the film itself. Unfortunately, the final scenes are too eager to settle finer plots with an ending that is too clean for its own good, allowing the characters to escape the full weight of their decisions, especially since the thriller spends so much time exposing the messy consequences of morally questionable choices.

Still, Animals is that rare breed of crime thriller, driven by the secret they keep, proving the most dangerous predators are the ones who know exactly what they are doing.

The new Netflix streaming film Animals premieres October 9th!

Animals Review: A Tightly Wound, Aggressive, and Ruthless Political Crime Thriller