Only The Strong Survive

Before viewing a movie like Animal Kingdom, you have to throw out all of your preconceived notions of what a gangster, crime drama should be. You will not find the choppy, stylized storytelling of say... Quentin Tarantino or the epic weaving of Francis Ford Coppola à la The Godfather. Nor will you find the shocking, heart-stopping carnage of Scarface. What you will find is the unfolding of an unlovely tale. Family. Betrayal. Instinctive ferocity.

The film focuses on seventeen year old Josh a.k.a. J, who by all outward appearances leads the life of a typical teenager in Melbourne, Australia. That's if typical includes calmly calling the paramedics when your mom overdoses, growing up with three uncles who are professional armed robbers by trade and having a ruthless matriarch nicknamed Smurf who oversees the most harrowing calamities with bone chilling calm and one raised eyebrow.

Animal Kingdom introduces everyone with a steady hand. Honestly, the only actor I was familiar with going into it was Guy Pearce from Memento. Other than that, I knew no one and it only served to engulf me more into the characters. Josh is played with unseemly simplicity. He's just a kid with a cute girlfriend who happens to get caught up in the family drama. Things get really hairy when the cops are sick of the lawless antics. They aren't out to arrest. They're out for blood. Pearce plays the lead detective who seems to be the only one who actually cares about justice. He tries to help Josh. But it's reminiscent of Tom Cruise in Jerry McGuire. You can almost hear Pearce pleading with J, "Help me help you...Help me, help you." Of course, talking to the cops carries with it its own consequences but that's for you- the viewer to witness or judge. One word of advice: Don't get comfortable with any one person or situation. This film has hard turns by the cluster and they don't care whether you're buckled up or not.

There is something unsettling about how casually all of these dangerous events take place. The hard drug use, the unexpected bloodshed and the overall passiveness where outrage should be. It's downright scary...and it's pure genius. Animal Kingdom begs the question, "Where do you fit in?" At the end of the day, isn't that what it's all about? Where we stand or fall in the food chain of this relentless world. What are we made of? Are outlaws born bad or cultivated through a series of circumstances. When the hammer comes down do you have the mettle, the intestinal fortitude? How are you built? Can you survive? These are questions we should all ask ourselves from time to time. Pray that you never have to find the answers they way those in Animal Kingdom do.