203.
American Animals
7/10
Another Odeon Screen Unseen and I have not even heard of this one before hand. On twitter, with the clues that Odeon were giving out, people had guessed right, but that's as far as my knowledge would go about this movie. I only recognised one face going into the movie and that would be Evan peters, who has been recently playing Quicksilver in the X-Men movie franchise. It's always a little more refreshing going into a movie after not seeing a single trailer or knowing the back story so let's find out if this could be a beast of a movie.
A very simple story brought to you in a different kind of style. We will be following the real-life characters as they tell us about the events, which will then been shown by the actors. A heist movie focusing around students looking to steal a collection of rare books based around animals that they set their sights on, on a tour of their University.
They realise it's a bit too much for two people and enlist a few others but from the start, we can see that most of the gang want to cancel the heist. There is so much nervousness that it carries it through to the audience. Warren, played by Evans is the only one that is truly rebellious and wants to carry on with the elaborate plan.
Dressing up as old men and setting up a private appointment to view the books, they arrive at the University and end up 'shitting out' at the last minute. The decide against the disguised in the end, after a failed attempt and instead, act as business men and suddenly get into the zone.
Warren becomes a different kind of animal, he tases the librarian and has Eric tie her up, getting into the collection and leaving though a back door to a lift and clumsily making their way to the outside. In the panic, they have to leave the biggest books behind but escape with the rarest.
The lads heads to an auction house to get authenticated, which their black market buyers would desire. One of the lads leaves his number with the curators and this doesn't go down well. They can instantly be tracked and as soon as Spencer realises this, they are deep in the shit. All of the thieves show great stress as they try their best to lay low and keep out of sight but as this all unfolds, the FBI closes in. Slow motion shows each of the lads getting taken, one by one. The movie ends with us being told in text that each served over 7 years in prison for their list of offences. The movie draws to a close with the real-life robbers telling us of their regret for everything that happened. They put their on families through pain and also the librarian. Warren, the slightly crazy one, tells us that h may have fabricated the story of going to Amsterdam to meet some black market buyers. Telling the others this story in order to get the wheels in motion. Tying all loose ends, we are told what each of the guys are doing now, each living a better life but we are never really told whether they are still in touch with each other.
This was a very interesting story with a real-life heist, with younger people involved and a ultimate failure by the end. The more interesting factor was that we kind of had interview from the real robbers, who should content against each other by the end of the film. It shows desperate measures for some and just a need for trouble from others. With a relatively unknown cast, you can focus on the storyline a bit more rather than taking in the presence of certain actors too much. The storyline itself is pretty simple and cant be extended too much but it's definitely made more interesting when each robber gives their version of the events and how they seen it, which changes the onscreen activities by the actual actors. I do like a true story, of sorts and mixed with a heist and a fail, which you don't seen too often, especially in a fictional heist movie, it was refreshing. For once, Odeon's Screen Unseen have chucked us a decent film to watch. This will never be a world beater and maybe not even seen by many, but I enjoyed.
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