American Animals

Here’s a heist movie based on a true story with an original twist. Writer-director Bart Layton has made a narrative film based on a real-life robbery of some treasured collectibles by four young men. Layton casts the four with the great talents of Evan Peters, Blake Jenner, Barry Keoghan and Jared Abrahamson for an exciting and funny retelling of the heist, which had some normal guys dressing like old men to steal paintings and Darwin books from a kindly librarian (Ann Dowd). The twist here is that Layton also gets the real-life people to tell their accounts of what actually happened, so he mixes in a true documentary element. But rather than playing like some campy criminal reenactment TV show, the film comes together in a way where the real guys are right at home in the proceedings. It’s a genius move that gives the movie some real-life heft without taking away from the drama and craziness of the crime. In fact, their presence truly enhances everything, making this one of the more unique crime films in memory. Peters is terrific as Warren Lipka, the bad boy mastermind of the group (and Lipka himself makes for an entertaining counterpart in his interview segments). Jenner continues to be a great up-and-coming actor, while Keoghan impressively adds to a resume that includes Dunkirk and The Killing of the Sacred Deer. One of the movie’s great elements is the differences between the storytelling and the actual interviews, something that Layton comically exploits on more than one occasion. The result is a movie that gets high marks for originality to go with its solid performances. You’ve never seen anything quite like it.