Reviews

Great performance from Noah Taylor as a Southern misfit who is productive. In all a sad tale about futility, dreams, and psychopathy. The girl seems to have been broken from a young age, the band men she meets just small time dreamers, and Taylor's character a strict divided thinker. No-one comes out of the film well. Be warned there is some extreme violence at the film's end. I had to peer from between my fingers.

Having met a wayward girl at some kind of boarding house, Taylor's character gets her a job at the local hardware store. at least i think that's how it started. It may have started with the girl meeting the band guys. Actually I think it did. Anyway the characters lives eventually collide following a band guy receiving some very bad news. Determined to track down the source of his troubles he does so. girl goes missing, Taylor goes psycho. Then i hid behind my hands.

Oh what a dog of a movie! Why does Vince Vaughan feature in this drivel? Like The Break Up his character is awful, an awful unkempt stupid man. The movie is over within the first hour when Geneva told him the cold hard facts of what she would do if he told. Did he take heed? Of course not, as that would require intelligence and commonsense! There was no dilemma in this movie, just the interfering curtain twitching and beak sticking in of one foul man. Why anyone would want to be in a relationship with Vaughan's character is beyond me. He is a cokk, pure and simple.

The fatness of the men annoyed me too. Whatever happened to a slim attractive waistline?

Avoid this movie. It's a lemon.

None too unrealistic account of westie sons in a fibro house with a chicken wire fence. Bang in the stubbies, daggy haircuts, goatees, and scabby jeans and that is just about the whole package. Based loosely around a horrendous crime, the film really shows the power of fear and how a sinister bully can infect and create an atmosphere for all to choke on. Brett is well acted and Jackie has i right when she says they all felt safer when he was in jail. The unrealistic part is that all the sons have their liberty and there is not an ankle bracelet to be seen. You could say that being a westie means you don't have a chance but Toni Collette comes from sunny downtown Blacktown so it seems some get out. That she was back in a washing shed for this flick was mildly amusing.

Not a cheery film by any means, more a hopeless account of a funny kind of low bottom snobbery - you all think yer better than us cos we're scum and we don't want yer pity but what chance do we have cos no one does nuthin for us.

Demi Moore shaves her head and enlists in the SEALS CERT programme. Demi Moore. Demi Moore!!!! Of all people! The mere thought of Ms Moore bunking down with a load of squaddies made me howl with laughter. I mean anyone, anyone else would have been a better candidate than Demi Moore! Still she does her best: getting dirty in the mud, lezzing it up with the wimmin, and doin her darnedest to pass the course.

The campness extends to the Commander in his tight khaki shorts. Are we honestly expected to believe he can mince around in this get up unmolested? Sure they tough it up drinking from the bottle and all, but the arrangement has all the hallmarks of PRIDE weekend sleep out!

Oh how I laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

Some of the reviews of this film are quite scathing. It is no Oscar winner, but an enjoyable film nonetheless. How anyone could not feel sorry for poor old Eddie is beyond me. The kid just wants something to do and needs direction. I applaud his dreams and his hopes as it is plain he has bugger all chance of achieving anything at all. To be doomed at such a young age is a waste, yet there are many working class boys in the same situation. He just needed someone sane and decent to give him a hand.

Sooooo...it's an entertaining flick, depressing and flat, and you need to be a bit of an idealist and romantic to enjoy films like this.

The chavvy Melbourne underworld has characters, maybe a bit of life, certainly a lot of scag, and some real proper darkness. Animal Kingdom did not do this element of Aussie society any justice. The 'lead' character J sounded and acted like a wet soppy rag, the Cody brothers barely displayed any menace, and mum Janine was a poor shadow of one-eyed brothel owner Kath Pettingill.

I am not sure what the film was about. Was it about a crim Melbourne family? Was it about a matriarch? Was it about different lives? The cynic in me says it was a slap up job in response to The UnderBelly series and the resurgence of Melbourne hits in the past couple of years. Either way the film is not what I would call remarkable.

And it plods along. Someone dies, someone shoots up, and J lurches along, bland as a dry Sao biscuit. The main reason for me watching the film was to see why Jackie Weaver earned herself an Oscar nomination in the character of Janine 'Smurf' Cody. As for the impact of Smurf, well it just didn't cut it for me. Sure she had power and a hold but the Director could have gone to town much more than he did. Weaver's performance is not worthy of an Oscar because there was no real stretch in her acting. Lynette Curran did a much better job as a mum of useless sons in The Boys, albeit a movie with a very different focus.

All in all Animal Kingdom is a watchable film but nothing special.