American Animals

When I saw the trailer for American Animals last week I thought it looked highly amusing and immediately wanted to see it.  I took in a screening on Saturday afternoon and I really enjoyed it.  Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) is finding college life to be less exciting than he imagined and, as an aspiring artist, longs for a transformative experience to give his paintings more interest.  On a typical college tour of the library he notices that the special collections library has several volumes of Audubon's The Birds of America valued at over $12 million.  He fantasizes about stealing them and mentions this to his ne'er-do-well friend Warren Lipka (Evan Peters) who is on the verge of losing his athletic scholarship and longs for adventure. They spend all their time planning an elaborate heist and, when they realize that it could actually be done, they recruit Eric Borsuk (Jared Abrahamson) and Chas Allen (Blake Jenner).  As the narrative plays out, the real Spencer Reinhard, Warren Lipka, Eric Borsuk, and Chas Allen give documentary-style interviews about the goings-on and this is both incredibly successful and a bit detrimental in the final resolution.  Their commentary is often hilarious but their remorse at what they did feels a bit self-serving.  At the end of the movie the librarian of the special collection, Betty Jean Gooch (played in the narrative by Ann Dowd), condemns the boys as selfish thrill-seekers.  This feels a little bit out of place, as if this movie doesn't know if it is a light-hearted caper or a cautionary tale about the amorality of affluent young men.  However, I found it to be wildly entertaining despite the weighty conclusion and would recommend it.