Ben Affleck's Netflix kidnapping thriller 'Animals' draws mostly mixed-to-negative reviews

The premise

Ben Affleck directs and stars in 'Animals', his sixth feature as a director, which is being released directly to Netflix. The reviews describe a Los Angeles crime thriller centred on Mark Kimball, a wealthy lawyer and Gulf War veteran running for mayor of Los Angeles as an independent, non-party-affiliated candidate. Kimball has leveraged his family's wealth to carry him through the closing stretch of a tight race, while his wife Abby, played by Kerry Washington, is hiding problems of her own. The story escalates when kidnappers take the couple's preteen son Denny, played by Christopher Woodley, on Halloween and demand $7 million for his return.

Critical reception

The reviews vary in severity, but the harshest verdicts come from The Guardian, The New York Times and IndieWire. The Guardian's headline calls the film a dull Netflix thriller lacking in bark and bite, and it describes a listless effort that feels like many other, better films. The New York Times calls it an extraordinarily flat political thriller and a synthetic, soulless product. IndieWire goes further, calling the film tedious and arguing that it looks like a bad television show, a tweener that is neither a satisfying feature nor a real TV series.

Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are more forgiving. Variety finds the film is most interesting when it is most cynical, and describes it as slick, pacy all-star pulp that benefits from its director-star's unassuming professionalism. The Hollywood Reporter calls it a passably entertaining Netflix crime thriller that is full of juicy elements that should be a lot tastier. Several reviewers agree that the script's political satire is its most incisive element, but that the film turns to melodrama and button-pushing 'what would you do' scenarios when it should press harder.

Cast and performances

Gillian Anderson draws the most praise as Dayle Burton, the enigmatic fixer hired to solve the kidnapping. The Hollywood Reporter says she is a hoot in a role far from her earlier work and that she gives the movie a spicy tang that is missing elsewhere, noting that the character will collect a $1.4 million fee no matter the outcome. The New York Times says her performance is a treat, though her white suit does not convince the reviewer that she is one of the good guys. Steven Yeun, who plays campaign manager Sam, receives less enthusiasm, with Variety calling the role disappointingly flat.

IndieWire says Affleck flexes his well-honed Mexican Spanish on the campaign trail, while Adriana Paz, who plays the housekeeper Cecilia, is described as dismally wasted in a subservient victim role. The reviews also note that Cecilia's boyfriend Ramon, played by Luis Gerardo Mendez, is undocumented, a thread that the New York Times and IndieWire both single out as part of the film's domestic tension.

The High and Low question

Deadline's two reviews draw a direct line to Akira Kurosawa's 1963 Japanese kidnap drama High and Low. Deadline recalls that Spike Lee made a contemporary update last year, Highest 2 Lowest, set in the New York music business and starring Denzel Washington. The reviewer says there is no mention of either film in the press notes for Animals, but argues that the bones of High and Low certainly appear to have been an influence. The Hollywood Reporter makes the same point more sharply, calling the movie transparently indebted to Kurosawa's genre classic while making no acknowledgment of the inspiration. It lists a botched kidnapping in which the wrong person's son is taken among the borrowed elements.

Craft and direction

Affleck co-wrote the script with Billy Ray and Connor O. McIntyre, and the reviews treat the screenplay as the main weakness. The New York Times describes the film as owing a significant narrative debt to John Ford's 1962 classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and says cinematographer Robert Elswit spins the camera in circles in an attempt to create excitement. The Guardian points out that Affleck has pushed through several Hollywood comebacks, and that his directing career has seemed stuck since Argo won best picture. Reviewers still credit his track record, citing Gone Baby Gone, The Town and Argo, while concluding that Animals is disposable pulp rather than a return to form.