There’s been a big critical buzz about ANIMAL KINGDOM, a new crime family saga from Australia, but I don’t get all the excitement. There are some good performances and the usual appeal of a crime family with a strong mother figure like the inimitable Shelley Winters in BLOODY MAMA (Roger Corman, 1970), but honestly, what’s all the shouting about? Writer-director David Michôd has based his story’s perspective and ultimately his focus on one of the least communicative leading men I have ever seen– this kid makes Mount Rushmore look emotional. It doesn’t help that James Frecheville plays him with stunning impassivity – there is only one cleansing breakdown he suffers in the movie, and that leads to ANIMAL KINGDOM’S grim if not unexpected conclusion. But up until that point, his main function in the story is to give us access to his crazy family. He’s actually the nephew of the missing girl in the tribe, his dead junkie mother whom we see in brief ghastly repose at the film’s beginning. So Frecheville seeks out his grandmother, cunningly played by Jacki Weaver who is being bruited about as a potential Best Supporting Actress nominee – she’s kind of an Australian Sylvia Miles, who stays surrounded by her murderous and criminal sons. Weaver is a bit too chummy with her offspring, giving them long and loving full mouth kisses whenever she has the chance, and it sets a creepy tone that continues throughout the film. The dad seems long missing and never mentioned, but it’s the oldest son who’s the problem. Known as The Pope, Ben Mendelsohn’s character is as close as this movie gets to a depiction of pure evil. He spends much of ANIMAL KINGDOM chasing, glaring at or killing people, and he’s no one you want to be left alone in a room with. Once the brutal Melbourne police kill the nicest of the brothers who wants out of the lifestyle, Mendelsohn and the rest of the clan hunger for revenge They murder a couple of cops in cold blood and matters escalate from there. Michôd handles well the cat and mouse game the family members play with Guy Pearce as the lead investigator, but the plot gets more confusing as the film goes on, and the strong Aussie accents don’t help Stateside comprehension. A courtroom strategy genius, in the form of a comely attorney, appears out of nowhere so the bad guys seem to get off. But Michôd, with his Manichean idea of justice, can’t let that happen, so final retribution is exacted. It all seems to amount to very little by the end, and this is by no means the most stylistically exciting film to emerge recently from Australia. I’ll take CHOPPER (Andrew Dominik, 2000) with Eric Bana as the head of his own crime family over ANIMAL KINGDOM, and I bet Bana would beat the shit out of Ben Mendelsohn, too. Now that’s a real Aussie crime flick.

Dir: David Michôd, 2010. 113 mins. Australian. Porchlight Films. Produced by Liz Watts. Screenplay by. Cinematography by Adam Arkapaw. Edited by Luke Doolan. Production design by Josephine Ford. Music by Antony Partos. With James Frecheville, Ben Mendelsohn, Jacki Weaver, Sullivan Stapleton, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, Luke Ford, Laura Wheelwright.