Synopsis
Lexington, Kentucky, 2004. Four young men attempt to execute one of the most audacious art heists in the history of the United States.
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Cast
- Evan PetersWarren Lipka
- Barry KeoghanSpencer Reinhard
- Blake JennerChas Allen
- Jared AbrahamsonEric Borsuk
- Warren LipkaThe Real Warren Lipka
- Spencer ReinhardThe Real Spencer Reinhard
- Chas AllenThe Real Chas Allen
- Eric BorsukThe Real Eric Borsuk
- Ann DowdBetty Jean 'BJ' Gooch
- Gary BasarabaWarren Lipka Senior
- 100
Variety
This is unabashedly virtuoso, show-off filmmaking, as cocky as the misguided young men at the film’s center, who, at least for a period, saw their lives as a Hollywood romp in itself. - 90
The Hollywood Reporter
Both as a writer and director, Layton delivers the dramatic goods here with the skill of a pro at the top of his game while adding the rueful perspective of time's reassessment of youthful indiscretions; this has to rate among the most accomplished and fully realized big-screen debuts of recent times. - 90
Screen Daily
American Animals requires many cuts and perspectives which are second-nature to an accomplished documentarian, yet the drama here also seems effortless and seamlessly integrated. - 88
Movie Nation
American Animals is a tense, taut sober and occasionally silly thriller that reminds us that the Caribbean Island at the end of the Hollywood heist is always a mirage. - 83
Entertainment Weekly
A movie seemingly custom-made for the era of alternative facts, American Animals feels like a new kind of true-crime thriller: one that shamelessly rewrites its truths in real time as it goes. - 75
The A.V. Club
For all its mode-bending gamesmanship, American Animals is ultimately a fairly straightforward heist movie, albeit a stylish and engaging one. - 75
The Film Stage
American Animals is a legitimately exciting, funny, suspenseful, and at one point deeply upsetting crime film, ably demonstrating a command of genre trappings in service of a narrative about people warped by those very clichés. - 63
Slant Magazine
As he showed in "The Imposter," writer-director Bart Layton knows how to spin a compelling yarn.