'Animal Kingdom' directed by David Michod.

Produced by: Liz Watts.

Written by: David Michod.

Starring: Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, Luke Ford, Jacki Weaver, Sullivan Stapleton, and James Frecheville.

Studio: Porchlight Films, Film Victoria, Showtime Australia.

Distributed by: Madmen Entertainment.

Year of release: 2010.

Run time: 112 Minutes.

Budget: $5 Million.

Gross Revenue: $6, 019, 846.

It appears that the Australian film industry is so dead that even when an excellent movie isn't supported by the public. A six-million dollar return on Animal Kingdom? Christ alive! Things are grim. The movie is about a family called the Codys, who all work together to earn their respective livings by robbing banks. Kind of like The Partridge Family if you replaced the bubble-gum pop with swearing and guns. Even Janine, the mother character played by Jackie Weaver, has a significant role to play, which comes out later in the film. Oddly, she looks like she would be the perfect choice for Shirley Partridge if they were to ever give The Partridge Family a gritty reboot:

 Animal Kingdom is loosely based on the Pettingill family, who were (and I think maybe still are) prominent figures in the Melbourne criminal underworld. Events in the film are inspired by events that occurred in real life, like the Walsh Street police shootings that involved the murder of two young Victorian police officers at the hands of Victor Pierce and other members of the Pettingill family in 1988. However, this movie is no biopic; instead opting to go the Wolf Creek route by using true events to ground a work of fiction.

They get it right too; Animal Kingdom received virtually universal acclaim. I’m sure that there are wealthy Australian critics out there, who grew up on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, who used words like ‘socio-economic status’, or ‘class struggle’ in their reviews for this movie. They probably praised it as a thrilling insight into the seedy underbelly of Australian society. However, chances are that they don’t really know what it is like to be a bogan, or surrounded by bogans.

As a male who grew up on the Central Coast of NSW I had the delightful opportunity to be surrounded by bogans, and I can tell you that a lot of Animal Kingdom is authentic. The language, the clothing and the nature of the relationships between brother and brother, and mother and son in this movie are all realistic. There is one scene where the mentally unstable Andrew Cody (played by Ben Mendelsohn) sarcastically bullies his younger brother Darren Cody about wearing a pink shirt to their brother’s funeral:

“Where’d you get that suit? What is that suit? What do you think it looks good on ya? It looks gay. You gay?... It’s a serious question; I don’t care if you’re gay or you’re not gay. It’s all right if ya are mate, I just want you to tell me about it, you know? You making yourself a drink? What is it? A bourbon and coke? Yeah, well a bourbon and coke is not a very gay drink. Look, if you’re a gay man and you wanna make yourself a gay drink, you should just go ahead and make yourself a gay drink.”

Though I am ashamed to admit it, I probably performed such sarcastic affronts to friends of mine when I was in highschool. It wasn’t really about homophobia; it was more that a culture of sarcasm and machismo does exist in Australian society. And whilst modern Australian bogans may call each other gay, the same men can routinely be found celebrating the gay and lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney amongst the fabulous queens and trannies. Such dialogue as presented above lends authenticity to the movie, and it really does provide insight into Australian culture to those interested.

Another concern in Animal Kingdom is the nature of crime and its relationship with socio-economic status. Those Northern Beaches critics wouldn't be wrong if they dropped such loaded concepts. The protagonist Joshua Cody (James Frecheville), reminds us at the beginning of the film that the reason he got involved with the family’s crime ring is because he was just there at the time: “Kids just are wherever they are, and they do whatever they’re doin. You know? This is where I was, and this is what I was doin’.” This invokes the nurture side of the ‘Nature vs. Nurture’ debate, and I think it’s largely true of the role of poverty in Australian crime. If Joshua was living in a home that was financially stable and given economic support while he attended high school, he probably wouldn’t have given the life of crime a moment's thought. As it stands however, he is growing up with Ben Mendelsohn’s Andrew Cody as a father figure.

Ben Mendelsohn is simply divine in this. I know there has been a lot of buzz about Jackie Weaver (who received an academy award nomination for her role), but for me it was Mendelsohn’s performance that was the most entrancing. He occupies the screen as a waifish ghost of a man who wavers between friendly joviality and pure psychosis. You never know what he’s gonna do, and this unpredictability provides much of the film’s tension and suspense. It’s hard to give you an idea of this without spoiling it too much, however there is one scene at the end of the movie where Mendelsohn’s character gives Joshua’s young girlfriend a hit of heroin and then pumps her for information about whether or not she has spoken to the cops. I won’t tell you what happens, except to say that it’s a brutal scene, and one that will stay with you for a long time after the credit's roll.

Animal Kingdom is probably one of the best movies made about the Australian criminal underworld. It sits right up there with Chopper. The last half of the movie stretched on a little bit, and I probably would have preferred it if they ditched such elaborate plot developments in exchange for further character development, but I would recommend Animal Kingdom to anyone who wants to know what lower class Australian culture is really like. It’s a gripping film; it’s just a pity that it didn’t make much money at the box office.

Four stars: