Animal Kingdom (2010)

This is one of those movies with a minimalistic style, yet a very powerful set of performances. It is a character based film, with surprising and complex situations. Each new turn, pushes the preconceptions of each roll to discover layers upon layers of emotional conflict. In Animal Kingdom is the survival of the fittest that prevails over family ties. Director David Michôd doesn't have to be flashy to construct an intense story full of dysfunctional relationships. Not to mention that the editing is as intriguing and suspenseful as the rest of the look of the film. The opening scene alone should be a prelude of a fantastic, emotional roller coaster.

A disaffected young man makes a fateful phone call when he discovers his mother dead on the living room sofa after an overdose.This compelling tale of the unraveling of a notorious crime family centers on Joshua, a nephew and apprentice brought into the fold after his mother's demise, despite her stated intentions to isolate and protect him from her mother and siblings. We soon realise why - the brothers are armed robbers, supported by their over-affectionate mother Janine (a creepily effective Jacki Weaver), currently lying low while the cops look for Pope, the leader of the group.Pope's menace is gradually built by keeping him off-screen for most of the opening. Ben Mendelsohn as Pope gives a performance that lives up to the billing, mixing calm deadliness with explosive rage. He kills by instinct and feels no remorse, the character who most embodies the film's title. When he turns on Joshua, this provides the main narrative line that reaches a shocking but merited conclusion.The camera stays close to the characters and the dialogue is fractured and in the vernacular. This makes it all the more gritty and real. James Frecheville as Joshua is our guide through this world, an unresponsive drone most of the time, till he is compelled to take charge by the threat to his own life and the inability of the authorities to protect him. One genre strand here is the worm that turned. Frecheville is stunning as the taciturn, immature young man who has to learn and grow up quickly in a hostile world.For a crime drama about a violent family the film admirably does not linger on the gun violence. One key turning point, the (alleged) murder of a family intimate by the cops, is rendered through a reaction shot with Pope. The revenge killing of policemen is shown in long shot through silhouettes. The drama avoids schlock violence to stay with the characters and their motivations, and is all the better for it.The cheap, tasteless interiors, scrubby front yards, daggy fashions, head-bumping masculinity and authentic Aussie accents reminded me of Snowtown, another film about violent men in anonymous Australian suburbs. Is this an emerging Aussie aesthetic? If so, I for one would like to see more.

An unrelenting crime thriller/dysfunctional family drama with brilliant acting and a pace that never lets up. Jacki Weaver is the matriarch of a family of gangsters, one more hot headed than the next. Trouble doesn't so much follow them as it exudes FROM them. Writer/director David Michôd shies away from nothing with this film. Weaver is astounding in the role that put her on the international map but the entire cast is excellent. This is likely the most demented brood since the Borgias. Joel Edgerton and Sullivan Stapleton are among Weaver's boys. Guy Pearce is the cop who'll do anything it takes to nail them. The stunning cinematography is by Adam Arkapaw. A great movie.

Despite it's intriguing title, although we're not in Africa, but inner city Melbourne, during a more frightening time, when murder was really up, here was a crime tale, a true one, that I finally got around to watching and I must say I was surprisingly, tastily, gratefully entertained, during the whole engrossing affair. Next to Snowtown, these were the two best Aussie films I've seen in years, both winners, and rightfully, deservedly so. James Frenchville, as J., a fish out of water, here is taken under his Auntie's (Mama Smurf) wing, when his mother o.d's. He then soon realizes of the madness surrounding him, involving Smurf's out of control sons, one of them spiralling into madness, after a revenge execution of his brother by some avenging and shady police. What follows is a revenge attack of three young innocent cops to make a point. Jay is taken in, where he's questioned by a well meaning detective, (Pearce, solid and likable in the role, one of the strongest actually) where to honor family or to avoid real possibility chance of being bumped off by his crime family tree, this messed up teen must lie his way out, and J isn't a really convincing liar. Soon he finds himself in a really dangerous situation, where as things heat up more, he must choose, where he opts to go into witness protection, which with Pearce and his yahoos, doesn't really inspire security. Pearce's family here, had an interesting character touch, where's he leads a simple life with wifie, his little girl, autistic in this. Weaver stars in the role of her lifetime as the manipulative Judy Moran (Mama Smurf) where taken as noticeable acting commodity by Hollywood, inspires actors to never give up, or realize it's not too late to be noticed by those people. The build up to the end is not as you expect, with a nasty twist in it's finale, if also disappointing aspect from Jay's change of heart. Animal Kingdom is one movie I really enjoyed with a stellar heavy weight, cast, where Mendelsohn's AFI award winning role as the real messed up brother of the family, is nothing short of acting brilliance. It's an intensely driven film with some real suffocatingly scary moments, in a film that is so darn entertaining, your eyes will never leave the screen.