Here’s hoping the checks are in the mail to Akira Kurosawa and Spike Lee, because Ben Affleck’s latest effort behind the camera, Animals, is basically a note-for-note redo of High and Low, or Lee’s underrated remake from last year, Highest 2 Lowest. Affleck, who directs, and stars, and co-writes the screenplay, stars as Los Angeles mayoral candidate Mark Kimball, with Kerry Washington as his wife, Abigail. So the film is centered in the cynical world of populist politics, rather than big business or the record industry. Otherwise, with one key exception, the stories are the same and address the same moral dilemma. When a mysterious stranger claims to have kidnapped their son, Mark and Abigail are willing to move mountains to get him back. However, Mark has to consider the political ramifications of his choices when it turns out the kidnappers actually grabbed the child of his Mexican employee, played by Adriana Paz, and her boyfriend, an undocumented worker played by Luis Gerardo Mendez.
The thing is, this basic premise is always compelling and can play out in a thousand different ways. To the credit of Affleck and co-writers Billy Ray and Connor O. McIntyre, Animals throws in a few interesting wrinkles, including the addition of Gillian Anderson as Dayle Burton, a mysterious fixer who has money and power at her disposal, and she’s willing to put them to the Kimballs’ use for the right price. The problem is that Mark has thrown all of his inherited wealth into the campaign, with only their house left to be used as collateral. Steven Yeun plays Kimball’s top adviser, who also has to keep him aware of the optics of the situation. Mark can’t be seen to be willing to let a Mexican kid die or he’ll lose the Latino vote, crucial if he wants to win a tight campaign.
Animals is about whether the ideals we assert can hold up when the chips are down and everything is on the line. Mark is a good guy, but he doesn’t always live up to the man he claims to be on the campaign trail. Nobody comes away from this clean, with even Abigail harboring a major secret that threatens to destroy everything they’ve built. Affleck’s Justice League co-star, Ray Fisher, who seems relegated only to movies from past DCEU colleagues, has a small role as someone close to Abigail that she’s trying to keep out of the spotlight. Anderson, clad in a tight, all-white suit looking like a supervillain, is one of those enigmatic power players who exist only in the minds of Hollywood screenwriters. It’s a fun role but ultimately too ridiculous to make sense in a relatively grounded film.
It’s wild that a Ben Affleck-directed movie like Animals could be flying under the radar like this. We’re so far removed from the time when Affleck was guiding acclaimed big-screen dramas such as The Town, Argo, and Air. This is a more modest effort clearly built for the streaming audience. It adds in moments of action when there doesn’t need to be, in an effort to keep the Netflix audience from tuning out. It lacks the teeth to make a really tough statement about the current nature of our politics. And I couldn’t escape the feeling that I had just seen this movie, and despite Affleck’s best efforts, Animals doesn’t do enough to set itself apart. Affleck is a consistently reliable filmmaker, willing to take big risks with each project. So I expect that he’ll bounce back from this rare dud.
Animals is streaming now on Netflix.
