AMERICAN ANIMALS (2018)

Blech.  Remarkably unappealing true-crime* story about four Kentucky college students who come together on a botched heist of rare books.  The gimmick is that the 20-something quartet of would-be crooks play out this real life scenario as if it were a ‘high concept’ pitch meeting for a proposed movie.  (Note brief sequence imagining the crime perfectly playing out, a la GAMBIT/’66.)  Though not particularly wealthy, the sense of youthful entitlement is overwhelming for this quartet of under-achieving Raskolnikovs*, while preparation and execution are missing.  They might be watching themselves on a darkly comic adventure they are unable to stop as it turns progressively grim.  (Could all four be this collectively dumb?)  Even when they initially abort mid-mission, they don’t take the hint to call it off for good.  At which point, the film tries to turn serious, but can't get past rancid as writer/director Bart Layton, with a background in documentary, continues to look for sympathy and understanding long after we stop caring.  (Though note that one of the lead actors, Barry Keoghan, is head & shoulders above the rest.)  Layton even has the real-life counterparts show up in sporadic sound bite interviews to plead their case.  No dice.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: If only these guys had watched a heist film with fuck-ups, like BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET/’58, instead of ones with a cooler-than-thou vibe.  Maybe they’d have had thought twice and let the fantasy die.  (*They definitely hadn’t read CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Paid by your blog poster who initially typed ‘rue-crime’ instead of ‘true-crime.’  Sort of a Freudian typo, an accurate one.