Asif Khan (asifahsankhan) The heist genre is one that's been done to death, but with American Animals, filmmaker Bart Layton manages to pull off something wholly unique. Best known as the director behind the wildly entertaining documentary The Imposter, Layton brings his non-fiction background with him to his first narrative feature film, interlacing the movie's fictional portrayal of events with interviews with the real-life subjects. The effect is engaging, offering a self-reflection not often seen in crime films, and while the movie ends up hollow in some spots, the cast is terrific and Layton announces himself as a filmmaker to watch.When American Animals begins, text appears on the screen stating "This Is Not Based on a True Story," but after a few seconds the "Not Based on" drops out, and we're left with "This Is a True Story." The film chronicles the real-life heist of precious rare books from Transylvania University in 2004 Kentucky, pulled off by a quartet of mostly well-off college students. The central mastermind duo behind the heist is Spencer (Barry Keoghan), a talented young art student, and his adrenaline-fueled troublemaking best friend Warren (Evan Peters). First pitched as something of a joke, the two begin to meticulously plan a heist of a couple of rare books kept in a secure library on the Transylvania University campus. Spencer is spurred by the notion that all great artists had to endure some kind of hardship to become great, and he's lived a perfectly nice family life. Warren, meanwhile, is a bit of a free spirit, spurred to act mostly out of the desire to see if they could actually pull this off.From the get-go, Layton establishes a slick framing device that sets this movie apart. Keoghan-who had a tremendous 2017 with breakout turns in Dunkirk and The Killing of a Sacred Deer-may start a sentence as Spencer, but the camera will then swiftly move right to reveal the real Spencer, finishing the character's sentence. All of the major players involved in the real-life heist show up as part of these interviews, and it's kind of like I, Tonya if the framing interviews were the real people. American Animals uses this device to address the idea that one individual's recollection of events may be completely different than another's, but more importantly it adds a layer of self-reflexivity that's much welcomed.Indeed, the biggest turnoff of American Animals is we don't really understand why these idiot college students did what they did. It was a flawed plan from the get-go, they weren't particularly hurting for money, and one of them came from a supremely wealthy family. So it's hard to get invested in the planning of the heist-which takes up the bulk of the film-when you don't really care if these guys succeed or not. It's here where the interviews play the most crucial role, as the real-life counterparts in hindsight provide perspective regarding just how idiotic and harmful this whole pie-in-the-sky idea really was.

vandrist This movie is pretty much the American dream of get rich quick while ignoring the consequences of your actions. The actual story is great and the choice of cast for this movie were great choices. I can honestly say that I'm not into bank robbery, or heist movies, but this one was really good, in a disastrous kind of way. I love how they incorporate the real life people into this movie, having it pretty much like a confession style of the events that occurred. It's a different but great movie in an underwhelming 2018.

Aktham Tashtush Just a sensational story ,, The script writing is brilliant ,, but the most noticeable was the Directing !!! Bart Layton did both and he did one amazing job.. bringing up the characters themselves telling their side of the story was a nice touch.Casting Evan Peters and Barry Keoghan was a good move ,, they are both rising stars and they take the job seriously , and here they were engaging and so convincing.Now my issue is ... the movie went on the big screen at the beginning of this year , toured all around the world festivals, and premiered 1st of June on movie theaters ,, yet .. no sound what so ever ,, the marketing is so bad for this movie ,, or it is hated for some reason ,,, or maybe the critics think this is in a way glorifying crime "which isn't"... I knew about this by accidentally looking for some cast members of "American Horror Stories" and clicked on Evan Peters's IMDB page to see what's new ,and this came up !!!

cgrinna True story of 4 bored college students who get a brilliant idea that goes terribly wrong. Well directed, well acted, and the actual depictions are fantastic.