REVIEW:
Kidnapped kids and Dads out to rescue them have become the new go to movie over the last two decades. A high bar for these movies was with Taken back in 2008. But that was more of the action take on them. More recently we have been getting the suspense take, where our hero is armed only with a telephone as he takes calls from the kidnapper. There was of course Ransom, in the nineties, but in recent years we were given Denzel and Spike Lee’s Highest to Lowest, and now Ben Affleck’s Animals.
The movie is a direct to Netflix film, like his last one, The Rip. Only unlike that movie, which was excellent, this one falls short of the mark. It should also be noted that this movie was directed by Affleck, who started out as a promising director (Gone Baby Gone and the Town,) but hasn’t reached the level of those first two movies, ever since. There was Argo, which was pretty good, but not much of a rewatchable film, and then there was Air, a few years back, about the Michal Jordan Nike shoe. but C’mon…there’s no way a movie about a shoe deal can compete with those others, no matter how interesting it may be.
Animals is one to add to Affleck’s clunker list, alongside Live By Night, his attempt at making a period piece gangster movie. The movie is about a kid who is trick r treating with the Nanny and her boyfriend and their kid on Halloween when he gets kidnapped. Kind of. It’s more of a political thriller than a crime thriller, which is annoying. You see Affleck’s character, Mark Kimball, is running for mayor, and from the earliest scenes, he is talking to his nanny about how her boyfriend can’t be seen working at his house, because he is an illegal alien. So Kimball can’t be associated with this guy.
And Kimball doesn’t know that the man is with his own kid and their Nanny when out trick r treating. But the kidnapping happens and we learn about it only through phonically. Now I understand showing the story from the main character’s point of view, which means we would never see the actual kidnapping, but only the phone call about it. But by doing that, they are taking out what would have been one of the more exciting scenes in the movie.
Kimball and his wife turn to his campaign advisor, Sam Allison (played by Steven Yuen,) who knows someone that can help. This person is a “Fixer,” like George Clooney’s character in Michael Clayton, or Jodie Foster’s in Indside Man. She is played by Gilian Anderson from the X-Files, and she is all work and no play. That means she is straight down to business, starting with the idea that once she is called, she gets paid no matter what. Even if the kid is returned to the family before she even starts working the job. And that’s exactly what happens.
At about the halfway point of the movie, the kid is returned, and it’s a surprising moment, because it makes you wonder, what story is left for the movie to tell. Well, turns out there is still a kidnapped kid, it is just the wrong kid. It is the Nanny’s kid. And since Mark is running for mayor, he realizes that if he refuses to pay the ransom for a Latino kid, when he would have paid it for his own kid, he will lose the Latino vote. This is the plot of the second half of the movie. Seriously.
So now the second half centers around. getting this kid back who has no relationship with Mark. It definitely feels like some of the air has been deflated, and the movie has become less compelling. Ans the fact that Mark ends up being the one to go deliver the money and make the drop himself, is completely ridiculous. But it is a movie, and as such we want to follow the Ben Affleck character, not some nameless unknown actor, (like the guy playing the boy’s dad,) for the final money drop-off.
Spoilers ahead…
There are some interesting plot ideas from time to time here, like the Gillian Anderson character and every scene she’s in, but for the most part, this one is pretty uneventful. I mean, it’s about the recovery of your nanny’s missing kid, not even your missing kid. The only excitement or dealing with the kidnappers comes at the very end. And the surprise twist that we’ve come to expect, about who the kidnappers are, never comes. Imagine a Scream movie where the killer takes off the mask at the end and its someone who wasn’t in the movie so far. You would feel cheated and let down. The same thing goes for this ending here. It should have known better. Obviously the reveal is a huge thing, and to just bypass it completely is a huge mistake. Animals is an okay movie that sure could have been a whole lot better.