Animals review: Ben Affleck's family thriller stands on shaky ground

Ben Affleck’s Animals has the makings of a gripping thriller. A kidnapping, a politician fighting to protect his future, and a family caught in a crisis that threatens to expose its deepest insecurities offer plenty of room for suspense and moral conflict. There is an interesting story buried in this Netflix film, but finding it beneath the uneven storytelling becomes a challenge.Directed by Affleck, the film follows Mark Kimball, a Los Angeles mayoral candidate whose life takes a dramatic turn when his son is kidnapped. With a political campaign at stake and a ransom to arrange, Mark and his wife, Abigail (Kerry Washington), find themselves in a situation that tests their relationship, their judgment and the limits of their privilege. What begins as a desperate attempt to bring their child home gradually becomes a story about self-preservation, public image and the choices people make when their carefully managed lives fall apart.The premise works because it brings together two worlds that rarely remain separate for long: the private compromises of a family and the public calculations of a politician. Mark cannot afford to think like a father alone; every decision carries consequences for his campaign. This conflict could have made for a tense, layered thriller, examining the distance between the person a politician presents to the world and the person he becomes when the cameras are turned away.Unfortunately, Animals does not explore this conflict with the consistency it needs. The film establishes the stakes early enough, but the tension does not build in a way that makes every new development feel consequential. There are moments when the situation promises to become genuinely unsettling, only for the narrative to lose momentum or move towards another interpersonal conflict. The result is a thriller that has the ingredients for a compelling story but struggles to put them together convincingly. The family dynamics are among the film’s more interesting elements. The kidnapping places Mark and Abigail under extraordinary pressure, exposing the fractures in their relationship and the assumptions that have shaped their lives. Their responses to the crisis reveal different ways of dealing with fear, responsibility and the possibility of losing control. These exchanges give the story a personal dimension and prevent it from becoming just a race against time.However, the domestic drama begins to occupy so much space that it occasionally works against the larger narrative. The marital tensions and family complications are relevant to the story, but they often draw attention away from the political and social questions that make the premise intriguing. A more carefully balanced screenplay could have used these relationships to sharpen the thriller’s central conflicts instead of allowing them to compete for attention. The film has something to say about privilege and power, but its ideas do not always find their way into the drama as effectively as they should. Affleck, as Mark, brings a controlled quality to the performance. He plays a man attempting to remain composed even as the circumstances around him become increasingly difficult to manage. There is a believable tension between Mark’s responsibilities as a father and his instinct to protect his political ambitions. Yet, the character’s internal struggle could have been explored with greater depth. We see him making difficult decisions, but the screenplay does not always give those decisions the emotional weight they deserve.Kerry Washington brings intensity to Abigail, whose place in the family crisis is more complicated than it first appears. She gives the character a sense of determination, although the writing leaves some of her emotional conflicts underdeveloped. Steven Yeun, playing Mark’s campaign manager, adds an important perspective to the story. His character understands that a crisis involving a politician is never entirely personal; there is always the question of what the public will discover and how quickly a reputation can collapse. Gillian Anderson, meanwhile, makes her presence felt as Dayle Burton, the crisis fixer whose composed manner stands out amid the surrounding panic. The supporting cast contributes to the film’s atmosphere, even when the writing does not give every character enough room to make a lasting impression.The performances are generally stronger than the material allows them to be. The film introduces characters with competing interests and complicated motivations, but it does not always develop these elements into satisfying dramatic turns. There is a difference between a story having several layers and a story knowing how to use them. Animals occasionally confuse the two.The film’s central idea remains its biggest strength. A family accustomed to a certain degree of comfort is suddenly forced to confront circumstances it cannot control. A politician who has built his career around presenting himself as a capable leader must now navigate a crisis in which every choice threatens to reveal something about him. These are fertile grounds for a thriller, especially one interested in the uncomfortable relationship between morality and self-interest.Yet, an intriguing premise cannot carry an entire film. The screenplay needs to make its characters’ decisions feel inevitable in retrospect, even when they are surprising in the moment. Here, some developments feel insufficiently earned, while the emotional and political threads do not always come together as neatly as they should. The film is watchable, but it rarely achieves the sustained tension that would make its central predicament truly gripping.Animals is not a complete misfire. It has a capable cast, a premise with genuine potential and enough interesting questions to keep the story from feeling entirely empty. But it never turns these strengths into a cohesive cinematic experience. The family drama adds texture, the political backdrop offers scope, and the kidnapping supplies urgency. What is missing is the precision to make all three work in tandem. Also, a very confusing climax. The pieces don’t add up, and you find yourself thinking about how they reached that ending long after the film is over.Ultimately, Animals feels like a film with a stronger story in its conception than on the screen. It wants to examine what happens when fear strips away the privileges, ambitions and carefully maintained appearances that define a family. That is a promising starting point. The execution, however, is too uneven to make the most of it.- Ends