Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom is one of two good films to come out of Australia in 2010. The other, The Square, was made by Joel Edgerton (who is in Animal Kingdom). Like The Square, Animal Kingdom is often shockingly violent, while maintaining dark undertone. As the film opens, a mother is dead from a heroin OD, and her son watches an Aussie "Deal or No Deal" as the paramedics attempt to resuscitate her. Turns out, this mother was attempting to keep her son, J, away from the real bad side of the family. J is pretty clueless what to do following his mothers death, so he calls up this bad side, and is slowly sucked in. He meets the group of low-level criminals led by the honey-sweet, but evil, Smurf (Jacki Weaver). Her sons and husband are all pretty blatant in their criminal activity, but J has happened to come upon the family in their decline. After years of untouchability, the feds are closing in, and slowly the family is dismantled. Now, Animal Kingdom has a singular fault: the main character, J, is a bit boring. At times he is catatonic while surrounded by colorful characters like Guy Pearce, Weaver, and the previously mentioned Edgerton. However, this gives the sinkhole of a film a place to go. It allows for a numbness to be prodded into activity. The film is so dark and brooding, slow and occasionally shocking, that by the end, all that can happened has happened and we are left to consider a way of life.
Animal Kingdom: ★★★1/2