I'm sorry David Michod. I know you've been swatting away journalists and negotiating contracts in overseas markets, but I just can't bring myself to join the throng of admirers with regards to your debut feature film, Animal Kingdom. I know, I know, this will do nothing to endear me to complete strangers at subsequent summer BBQs and the astonished looks across tabletops will become onerous at some point; but I've decided that we all just need to accept that unlike one of the film's stars, Luke Ford, you, David, just haven't, to paraphrase your words, 'seen enough' to pull off a text like this. And, sadly, you may well do more harm than good in the current climate.
When it all boils down, the essence of Animal Kingdom is melodrama that harks back to an earlier, more ignorant era. Because, when the dust settles, the junkie criminal is the epitome of evil, whilst the 'family man' police officer saves the day, with a bit of help from the 'quiet little brother'. Sure, the film has been sold as 'A Crime Story', but I think it's important to be cognizant of the ripple effect here; especially upon middle-class Melbourne. You see, because every time a heavily-stoned person turns up on a train begging for money, or every time a known-criminal is incarcerated without proper medical attention due to his/her benzodiazepine dependence, the empathy dial will be even further to the left than it is otherwise; it may not even be touched at all. "But it's only a movie!", I hear you exclaim. Yeah, and the Herald Sun is only a newspaper. In fact, one could argue that the former actually holds more weight in the 21st century.
Who is the injecting drug user in Animal Kingdom? He is a psychopathic, violent murderer who even considers rape every once in a while if the target is young enough. He doesn't think twice about injecting drug-naive teenagers in distress, and may even be a closet homosexual. Disgusting, I know.
Michod establishes a perspective early on, with the opening scene of J's mother overdosed on the couch whilst he sits next to her in front of a 'game show'-blaring television. The trite portrayal of 'heroin as killer' sets the scene for the rest of the film. We later learn that J's mother became estranged from her mother, Jackie Weaver's 'Smurf', because of a card game disagreement. Michod embarrassingly reveals his feeble take on 'low-life, scumbag Australia' - petty, evil and addicted. And whilst such characters do exist in the world, Michod's text not only lacks gravity, but I also just wasn't convinced by the portrayal emanating from the screen. Unlike Ray Winstone in 44-inch Chest, or Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast, two films that didn't receive the attention they deserved; two films that didn't rehash hackneyed material from the mind of a writer whose understanding of the 'underworld' seems to be derived from tabloid headlines and bain marie banter. How could anyone be convinced when Joel Edgerton's Barry passes a wad of cash to Ben Mendelsohn's Pope at the front of a store in clear view of the shop window? These are two crims who are under constant surveillance by detectives, thinking nothing of such a silly mistake. Add 'stupid' to the aforementioned list and unveil yet another cliche. It's no wonder Barry is shot soon after!
Then, in possibly the film's standout scene, Mendelsohn draws on an old skeleton companion when he fairly accurately portrays heroin use with the subtle cues of a slight rub to the nose, glassy eyes and a blissful naivety. But Mendolsohn well and truly tears such an achievement down when he colludes with Michod in a scene where J's girlfriend, Nicky, succumbs, without so much as a whimper, to Pope's offer of a heroin injection. This is yet another example of Michod portraying a world he knows nothing about. He seems to have created a bunch of scenarios that hit the 'FULL-ON' register, pieced them all together, labeled it a film, and then waited for equally unaware audience members to look at each other and gasp, "FULL-ON!!!". Well, folks, it doesn't run that smoothly, because young women often have difficulty finding their veins because they are often thinner and deeper under the surface of the skin, and an opiate-naive teenager would have most likely vomited soon after receiving the injection. Pope doesn't come off as a new initiate, so the contents of the syringe would have been potent (or potent enough). Following the injection, Nicky seems to just stare blankly at Pope, as if nothing of significance had just taken place.
It doesn't seem to matter to Michod that a group of police detectives murdered Barry in broad daylight, with the corrupt drug squad officer portrayed lightly as a bumbling dork who, deep down, really does want to 'do the right thing'. In the world of Animal Kingdom, 'good' simply wears a uniform, whilst 'evil' may not wear a tracksuit but is drug-fucked and might be found lurking at the local. Okay, so let's do a random search of today's news headlines and see just what the face of 'evil' might look like in reality. The first two that appear on my computer are: 1. "A Victorian policeman has been charged with various offences including having sex with an underage girl." - theage.com.au (21.12.2010) 2. "The owner of a Sydney childcare centre charged with indecently assaulting a pre-school girl in his care is facing a fresh charge of assaulting a second girl." - theage.com.au (21.12.2010). Hmm, an officer of the law and a businessman. Whilst only charges have been laid at this stage, it should still make us think...
By the time Pope is chasing J, in what could be described as the film's climax, I have to say that I felt no more afraid of Pope than I did of Nicky's clueless dad who seems to do whatever anyone tells him, regardless of how well he knows them. Mendelsohn is far more menacing in Beautiful Kate, due primarily to that film's authenticity; because at the end of the day, Michod's film just isn't authentic and, failing that, isn't even daring as it merely reverts back to familiar ground well-worthy of contempt.
David Michod, I am going to set you some homework to complete before your next 'masterpiece'. Please seek out the meaning of the following words: ambiguous, banal, caricature, lame. Due date is anytime before the next Sundance film festival.
More info. on Animal Kingdom can be found here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Kingdom_%28film%29
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