Animal Kingdom: movie review
This debut feature from Aussie filmmaker David Mich么d opens with Melbourne high-schooler Josh Cody (James Frecheville) finding his junkie mother dead from an drug overdose. After he moves in with his estranged Grandma (Jacki Weaver), we discover that the late Mom was probably the sanest member of the Cody clan. Her siblings are high-stakes criminals, currently targeted by a death squad of renegade cops, who are frustrated at not being able to make any charges stick. (Guy Pearce shows up for a while, as the one good cop.)
The leader of the gang is the unstable and self-destructive Pope Cody (Ben Mendelsohn), who always reacts in the way most likely to boomerang. Even though Josh is family, he鈥檚 still a stranger; paradoxically, the more he helps out his uncles in their schemes, the less they trust him.
鈥�Animal Kingdom鈥� is all very grim and unrelenting; Mich么d generates some nail-biting suspense, though it鈥檚 not the sort of experience that many people are likely to enjoy. Grade: B (Rated R for violence, drug content, and pervasive language.)
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