How does one describe the Animals lead Ben Affleck? To some, he’s the sad guy from the memes or the dude that gets Dunkin’. To some he’s the guy that used to be Batman (or Daredevil if you want to be different). To others, he’s a solid leading man who was unfairly treated by an unforgiving public and a blood-thirsty Hollywood tabloid cesspool. To me, he’s one of the best directors working today.
After years of being dogpiled by critics, the tabloids, and the industry, as well as commercial failures such as Gigli and Jersey Girl, Ben Affleck recalibrated his career with supporting roles in films such as Hollywoodland and a move that took him behind the camera. Gone Baby Gone was a solid and gripping crime film carried by Affleck’s already steady directorial hand and great performances. The Town is a full-on crime thriller that showed Affleck’s underappreciated knack for action. Argo is easily his masterpiece, a meticulous and anxiety-inducing caper that was the perfect showcase for Affleck’s skills as a director. Live by Night was… a movie that can best be described as “Gowns? Beautiful gowns…”: The Movie. After time away and a handful of projects falling through (most notably his McDonald’s Monopoly game scheme film and his pre-Matt Reeves version of The Batman), Affleck returned in 2023 with Air, a sports dramedy about the creation of the Air Jordan. While Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and Argo were a great run of dramas, Air was a stylish and hilarious change of pace that proved that Affleck can really direct anything. I had been eagerly anticipating Affleck’s next turn in the director’s chair, mostly hoping to see his McDonald’s Monopoly project finally break free from development hell. Instead, Affleck has returned with Animals, a new crime thriller. While it was somewhat deflating to see him retreat to familiar ground after demonstrating such range with Air, I still consider any new film directed by Affleck to be a major event—though, regrettably, this particular one proved not to be worth the wait.
Animals‘ story is so simplistic that it’s almost funny. Mark Kimball (Ben Affleck) is running for mayor of Los Angeles. On the surface, he’s a normal American man with a loving wife (Kerry Washington) and son (Christopher Woodley). Though on the other hand, Mark is almost too driven by his desire for victory, creating a rift between him and his wife. One Halloween night, Mark gets an anonymous phone call from a mysterious man who claims to have his son and won’t give him back unless Mark pays him $7 million. Suddenly, Mark and his wife Abigail’s world is turned upside down when it turns out that the boy that was captured wasn’t their son, but the son of their housekeeper Cecilia (Adriana Paz) and her husband Ramon (Luis Gerardo Méndez). With the assistance of a woman named Dayle (Gillian Anderson), the Kimball family will now go down dark paths to save Hector (Jacob Estrada). On the surface, Animals sounds very similar to Spike Lee’s recent film Highest 2 Lowest (Which itself is a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s High & Low). But you would think the combined powers of Ben Affleck and Captain Phillips screenwriter Billy Ray would be able to make something good out of familiar material. Yet the end result is a film that is so boring, so confounding, and so dull that it had me convinced for a lot of its runtime that it was directed by someone other than Ben Affleck.
The thing that hurts Animals is how dull it is. Gone is the subtle Ben Affleck of Gone Baby Gone, the intense Ben Affleck of The Town, the master auteur Ben Affleck of Argo, and the stylish Ben Affleck of Air. Instead we’re given a Ben Affleck who, outside of one long take during the second anonymous phone call, doesn’t know how to make anything work or feel like it has a pulse. Animals has such a simple premise but its screenplay never picks up the pace or gives the viewer any real reason to care. Even when characters are shouting every emotion they’re feeling you will struggle to feel any emotion besides boredom. Not to constantly compare Animals to Affleck’s better films, but compare this film’s screenplay and direction to Argo and Air, where every single season feels important and the tone is pitch perfect. Even Live by Night (which was originally the worst film Affleck directed) still had a sense of style and was carried by great costume design and decent action scenes. Animals wants us to bite our nails and dread what’s next. Instead, I struggled to stay awake, find a character worth rooting for, or even finding a note of Harry Gregson-Williams’ musical score that has a sign of life.
Equally dull as Affleck’s direction are the performances. Ben Affleck isn’t typically the best actor in his own films, typically being outdone by the likes of Jeremy Renner (The Town), Alan Arkin (Argo), Elle Fanning (Live by Night), and Matt Damon (Air). He’s the best performer in this movie because he seems to be the only one who’s trying. Kerry Washington shouts and cries her way through scenes that wouldn’t make it in the worst written episode of Scandal. Steven Yeun (an Oscar nominated actor) delivers every single line like he’s reading the script for the first time and is struggling not to ask Affleck “Can you believe someone wrote this?” between every take. Gillian Anderson is fine, but her awkward, faux-mysterious performance feels less like a woman venturing into darkness for the greater good and more like a strange Tilda Swinton impression. It really doesn’t help that the script has nothing of value to say. The story of a man facing consequences for his questionable decisions to achieve political victory is a decent premise for a film, especially for one directed by Ben Affleck. Sadly we’re stuck watching a movie that wouldn’t even be the belle of the Redbox ball. Netflix has an exaggerated reputation of essentially making direct-to-video slock disguised as actual cinema. While not entirely unfounded, auteur filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Noah Baumbach, Bradley Cooper, and Guillermo del Toro have made some of their best recent work for the streamer. But Affleck’s talents are wasted (as is the audience’s time) here and I only hope that his next feature film has nothing to do with Netflix.
Between Ben Affleck’s lackluster direction, an unnecessarily convoluted script, a lifeless score, and performances that seem to exist in entirely separate movies, Animals fails to be the successor to Air that either he or the audience deserves. Hopefully, his next project is a significant improvement, which is certainly achievable given that Air followed Live by Night. Whether McScam finally gets off the ground, he makes a better thriller, or he jumps into superhero films as a director, for as long as Ben Affleck’s next film makes an effort to keep the viewer awake, it’ll already be a major improvement.
