Underplayed Gems

American Animals (2018)

American Animals poster
Directed by
Bart Layton
Genre
drama film, docufiction, crime film
Country
United Kingdom, United States
Runtime
1h 56m
Rated
R
Rating
6.7 of 10 from 1,222 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

Four college students plan and attempt to steal rare books from a university library. The film mixes interviews with the real people involved and actors playing them.

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What happens

American Animals is a 2018 docudrama heist film written and directed by Bart Layton. Starring Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson, and Ann Dowd, it is an account of the Transylvania University book heist in Lexington, Kentucky in 2004. The film cuts between interview segments of the real-life people involved in the heist and actors playing out the same events. American Animals premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2018. The film was theatrically released in the United States on June 1, 2018, by The Orchard and MoviePass Ventures. Among other awards the film won the Junior Jury Award at The Montclair Film Festival. It received generally favorable reviews from critics, particularly for its screenplay, acting, use of unreliable narrators, and an unconventional storytelling structure that fused real-life characters and actors representing those characters. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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