American Animals

A few years ago I went on a date with this girl who told me she had just graduated from Transylvania University. At first, I thought that she was just pulling my chain (outdated phrase) but when I noticed that she never started laughing and simply continued on with the conversation as normal, I finally came to the realization that she wasn’t. Now I get that I will never be confused with being the smartest cookie in the batch (yes, I just called that metaphor into existence) but I can’t be the only one who has ever thought that she was referencing the same place that once gave us Dracula from the classic film Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School. Is Dracula really real? Do they study blood at this university? Is everyone required to eat Count Dracula cereal in the morning?

These were all of the burning questions that immediately sprung up in my mind after she said that and I so desperately wanted to ask her these things. Now a normal human being would have simply waited until she went to the restroom and then Googled these inquires before breaking them out on their date but not me! I couldn’t wait, I had to know! Well as you can imagine, she thought I was a moron for asking her such ridiculous questions and we never went on a second date. I personally thought that it would be cool if one of your school’s prerequisites was that you had to eat sugar covered ghosts every morning but maybe that’s why she’s now rich and traveling the world and I’m stuck writing grade school level movie reviews for free. Oh well, my broke Winona Ryder is out there somewhere; she’ll laugh at my terrible jokes. That was a true story by the way.

Who knew that Transylvania University was actually a real school in Lexington, Kentucky and that it had an average enrollment of around 1,000 students? And an even lesser known fact is that it is also the home of some of the rarest books on Earth, all of whose value is worth millions of dollars. And that’s where the film American Animals comes in. Just when I thought my moment of embarrassment was forever behind me, Hollywood had to stick it in my face one more time!

Well as you can imagine, life in Kentucky gets pretty slow at times and you run out of creative inspiration rather quickly. You can only paint so many portraits of Rick Pitino with black prostitutes before it’s time to move on to the next thing. And trust me, painting Black women’s booties can be stimulating but it’s also an all day job and it’s something that’s not easily handled by the faint of heart. So Spencer, who actually attended Transylvania University at the time, decided to team up with the University of Kentucky’s Warren, a free spirit whose ideas on challenging the status quo wound up being a negative influence on Spencer and ultimately led him down the wrong path in life.

One day after touring the library and being introduced to the secure location that houses these books, Spencer sort of casually brings it up to Warren who immediately sees it as their opportunity to never have to work for the man again. So they begin to devise a plot that, in their minds, required minimum risk and led to a quick payout. But as they gathered more information and realized the difficult task that was before them, they decided to recruit two more Transylvania students to help with reconnaissance (Eric) and the getaway driving (Chas). Will they actually go through with it? Or will one of the many signs that this is a great idea on paper but a horrible idea in real life finally make them come to their senses? I’ll let you guess what direction they wound up taking.

Part of what makes this film so cool is the fact that it’s a mix of standard storytelling; characters living out the plot as it happens, and the actual people who attempted this crime in real life recounting their versions of story. And as the latter happens, you get to see how the movie’s characters act out the varying versions of the story. Did some things actually happen or were certain events just a fantastical tale to help keep the others interested?

The involvement of the actual people was a bit annoying at first, simply because it felt like you were watching Season 1 of Parks and Rec, a season that’s universally hated by everyone. But as the story got darker, you noticed an eerie chill creep throughout the entire theater as you watched these people relive these moments in their minds. The raw emotion that this situation evoked is something that I won’t soon forget. One moment you’re just looking at kids act out what was essentially a research assignment and the next you’re watching them become the low level and scrubby versions of Val Kilmer and Robert Deniro in Heat.

I have to say that I was a bit skeptical of this film at first because Movie Pass kept hyping it up to me in their stupid app of their. But as it turned out, they took my $10 a month and delivered a solid film. Now if we could only pay Rian Johnson ten bucks to go back and remake The Last Jedi, we’d be on to something. I give American Animals a rating of FRESH!