Ben Affleck might wonder where he fits in the modern film industry. As a big-screen lead, his mere presence is not quite enough to excite the box office. For a director, even a Best Picture Oscar, like the one he won for Argo in 2013, is only currency so long.
But he is also a savvy operator. Alongside Matt Damon, Affleck now partners with Netflix making lean B movies with low overheads but a high-end finish. In January, he produced and starred in The Rip, a bristling cop drama. Now, he headlines and directs kidnap thriller Animals, an elevated cheeseburger of a film. I mean that as a compliment.
Affleck is running for mayor of Los Angeles — or rather his character, Mark Kimball, is. The two are easy to confuse, because Kimball is a film-star candidate. “I will not lie to you!” he tells voters, and appears to believe it.
If that sounds like Chekhov’s campaign promise, we have a long way to go. Complicating details are scattered through the fiction, but American realities co-star too. That includes the LA backdrop. Famously, ever fewer Hollywood movies now shoot in the actual city. Here we have Sunset Boulevard, Skid Row and much between.
Like The Rip, though, Animals mostly plays out behind closed doors — a clever budgeting choice that also serves a taut, tart chamber piece of an action movie.
The story kicks in when Kimball’s son is abducted. You may be put in mind of Liam Neeson’s vengeance-fuelled Taken movies. But Animals is smarter than that and — in the best sense — more cynical. Deft supporting players include Kerry Washington and a splendidly glacial Gillian Anderson, all contributing to a cluster bomb of secrets and hidden agendas. For Affleck, as with all animals, it seems you survive by adapting to circumstances.
★★★★☆
On Netflix now