American Animals

This is not your typical heist movie. Writer and director Bart Layton tells the true story of four college students who attempt to steal several rare books from their university’s library in Kentucky. It seems like a typical film for the first few minutes. Warren (Evan Peters) and Spencer (Barry Keoghan) hatch the plan together. They later add on Chas (Blake Jenner) and Eric (Jared Abrahamson) to aid in the heist. The neat thing Layton does is that he intersperses this re-enactment with interviews of the actual four men who undertook the heist. So you’re watching the actors go through the motions of planning the heist and then you get commentary from the real life people about what was going through their heads. I really liked this feature because it gave more insight to the story and it was kind of cool to see who the real people were. The film is funny and at times even ridiculous as you watch these four college kids try to organize and plan a heist. I had such a fun time watching this. It’s like a completely messed up Ocean’s movie where the heisters are very inadequate. But Layton does a great job of making you feel the pressure the guys were under while trying to pull this off. The fact that they make so many mistakes (giving out their own cell phone numbers to a book buyer for example) and have trouble tasing and tying up the special collections librarian gives you a sense of how difficult it is to actually pull something like this off. The elusive question of why is posed and Layton gives the four men a chance to explain themselves but it seems like even they struggle to understand their own choices. As far as heist movies go, this one is aces.

Film or Movie: Film
You’ll like this film if:
1. You like heist films
2. You like suspense
3. You like films based on true stories