Animals Review

Animals ReviewIf they say why? Why? Just tell them that it's human nature.Animals is in select theaters and on Netflix on October 9.Ben Affleck is back behind and in front of the camera with Animals, an entertaining new thriller that spices up the kidnap movie formula with a neat twist that asks big moral questions of its protagonists and viewers.Affleck plays Mark Kimball, a tycoon running as an independent candidate to become the next mayor of Los Angeles. (It should be noted that LA is currently in a heated mayoral campaign, so kudos, Netflix, on the timing of your film’s release.) Mark is a middle-aged white male Army veteran with progressive views and a Black wife and mixed-race son, who takes no outside funding and speaks fluent Spanish. It’s a cynical political strategist’s dream candidate come true, something the film acknowledges.It’s Halloween and LA is just days away from electing its next mayor. Mark has run a vigorous, self-funded campaign, and yet he’s behind enough that he could lose the election and with it, all the fortune he’s poured into it. His therapist wife Abigail (Kerry Washington) doesn’t know the extent to which he’s spent their savings on his campaign. And what Mark doesn’t know about – but which was revealed in the trailer – is that Abigail is having an affair (the other man is played by Affleck’s Justice League co-star Ray Fisher). Mark and Abigail get a call from an unknown man who reveals that he’s kidnapped their son Denny (Christopher Woodley) and demands a $7 million ransom, money they don’t have on hand because it’s all tied up in Mark’s self-funded campaign. In their desperation, they agree to Mark’s campaign manager Sam’s (Steven Yeun) idea of bringing in mysterious fixer Dayle Burton (Gillian Anderson), who can procure the ransom money (with additional fees involved, of course). The stone-cold, all-business Dayle commences schooling Mark and Abigail on how to deal with the kidnapper while also debunking any illusions they may have about human nature and moral stances.Kerry Washington and Ben Affleck in Animals. (Photo: Warrick Page/Netflix) The film’s big twist – which I will not reveal here – spins the movie into a far more compelling direction, both plot-wise and thematically. Until that point, Animals was an engaging flick, but it wasn’t doing anything much different from what we’ve already seen in other kidnapping movies like Ransom (i.e., who can you trust, who is the kidnapper, lots of harrowing phone calls, etc). But the twist then triggers a host of moral quandaries for Mark and Abigail to wrestle with while also forcing them to confront bitter truths about each other and their relationship.Affleck and Washington make their characters three-dimensional, flawed people. Both Mark and Abigail can be hypocritical and selfish at times, and have been unable to speak plainly about their problems with each other until this unthinkable crime happens. They hit each other with some hard truths, and the actors do a good job of capturing the strains in the marriage.Animals takes place after the fires that devastated LA in 2025, and that palpable anger against the political establishment, and how the haves and have-nots have fared since, is a key factor in the film. While Animals reflects the city’s socioeconomic layers and diverse populace, LA is used here as a microcosm of the US for a broader thematic and political commentary about the rich and the poor and American citizens and undocumented immigrants. All said, Animals gets pretty bleak and cynical in its depiction of human nature and the price of victory.VerdictThe new Netflix thriller Animals is tautly directed by Ben Affleck, who keeps the emphasis on the characters’ flawed humanity. None of the choices available to the protagonists are good ones, and the many “what would you do in this scenario?” questions the film poses keep the story compelling when the kidnapping plot itself ventures into formula.In This ArticleAnimals Review8IGN LogoReview scoringgreatBen Affleck’s new Netflix kidnapping thriller Animals tests the moral boundaries of its haves and have nots characters.Jim Vejvoda