What I think about American Animals

Directed by Bart Layton

Starring Evan Peters as Warren, Barry Keoghan as Spencer, Jared Abrahamson as Eric, Blake Jenner as Chas, and Warren Lipka, Spencer Reinhard, Eric Borsuk and Charles Thomas 'Chas' Allen II as themselves

Released in 2018

This film is the true story of how four college kids conspired to steal various rare books in 2004 and is sprinkled with clips from interviews of the actual people who perpetrated the heist.

For the sake of clarity, when inserting quotations I'll refer to the portrayals by 'Name' and the real people as 'Real!Name'. Otherwise, I'll either say 'the real Name' or just use context to determine which I'm talking about.

The Google Play Movies description sums it up thus: "Four young men mistake their life for a movie and attempt one of the most audacious heists in U.S. history." The 'movie' part is really important, because the number of influences are too high to list in full. Not only that, but Warren, the ringleader, is very interested in film, especially (ironically) the portrayal of success of crime in them. Film is his reference for his emotions. It's his inspiration for his actions. It's his manual for pulling a heist. He's also shown to fundamentally misunderstand films at two points: when he's telling Spencer it'll be like The Shawshank Redemption and Spencer has to remind him that the characters were in jail for years before they escaped; and again when he gives the crew 'Mister Colour' names (from Reservoir Dogs) and Chas tells him the point of the codenames in the film was so the characters don't know each other's identities.

There are so many direct references to film, so many that it cannot be accidental. I watched this film three times and I counted the following: Fight Club (stealing meat),The Shawshank Redemption, a panning shot of Warren's DVDs lingering on Reservoir Dogs, The Killing (a noir film; when he's watching it, Warren is shot in black and white), Jaws, The Matrix, and the Reservoir Dogs codenames. In the scene where Spencer picks up the disguises, the cashier asks "Costume party?", to which he replies "Making a movie." These are all before the heist. 

After the heist, there are no such references. From the moment they fuck up handling the librarian, reality hits. The heist goes tits up. Warren gets hit by Chas' car. The colour palette becomes steely and gloomy. When we're shown outside, it's either night or raining. The entire tone of the film changes. The characters begin acting out in the manners in which they became involved in the heist. Warren does something illegal for the hell of it. Spencer stops paying attention until he hurts himself in a car accident. Eric gets shoved over and over until he does something drastic and starts a bar fight.

Spencer: You ever feel like you're waiting for something to happen... but you don't know what it is. It's the thing that could, uh... make your life special.

Warren: Yeah. Like what?

Spencer: Exactly. Like what?

A key theme of the film is deception, especially on the parts of Warren and Spencer towards themselves. Warren's deception extends to the crew at large when considering the Amsterdam detail, but he really does deceive himself into believing their stupid plan is going to work, which makes him such a great villain: he's not villainous at all. He's just stupid. Spencer's self-deception is much more interesting. He deceives himself into believing that the whole experience wasn't worth it for him. It's only hinted that this is a lie. At the start of the film, he's trying to paint a self portrait of himself and isn't satisfied by it. At the end, after he gets arrested, the camera lingers on a new self portrait. In it, Spencer is bruised. He looks rough. But it is finished. Maybe this is to hint that Spencer is lying to us, or himself, when he says it wasn't worth it. Maybe it's to signify that what's done is done, that maybe Spencer didn't get what he was looking for, but did get something.

Real!Spencer: You can go through life with this expectation that something fantastic is going to happen, something life-altering that's gonna make your life different and unique. I realised that I actually had to make something happen on my own.

If we assume it is a deception, it's an innocent one, unlike Warren's. This is symbolised by the good/bad dichotomy in the film (or, if you like, innocence/corruption: I don't think Warren can be considered 'evil' in any way, just selfish and stupid) being represented in colour: good is blue, bad is red. Spencer wears a blue denim jacket. Warren wears a red flannel jacket. When Eric is being roped into the heist by Warren, he is lit by both blue and red light. Warren tells him that this decision is his "Red pill or blue pill moment", referring to The Matrix, where joining their crew would be taking the red pill. When Spencer has second thoughts about the heist, he is lit by a blue streetlamp; in the distance, he hallucinates a flamingo, to which the rare book Birds of America was open when he first saw it, lit by a red streetlamp, and makes his decision.

Real!Spencer: All I remember from his Amsterdam trip was dropping him off at the airport and picking him up. I definitely don't have evidence or actual proof that, that Warren went to Amsterdam.

Real!Chas: Over the years, I've definitely come to think that Warren's whole story about meeting with an Amsterdam buyer...that most likely he just made the whole thing up.

Real!Warren: ...I guess you just have to take my word for it.

Other miscellaneous things I noticed. Events outside the heist planning, like Warren's parents announcing their divorce and his conversation with the athletic director, add a lot to his character but could have been better integrated into the main plot. Some foreshadowing is very subtle, particularly the "Don't email from the same address twice" thing, which almost absolves the librarian foreshadowing being so incredibly heavy-handed that it practically gave me a concussion. 

I love the way this film is made, because every scene is based on the way Warren and Spencer remember it. Scenes will change on the fly as the two tell differing accounts of what happened, or rewind and play out in a different way. Details will shift as they forget or remember innocuous things, like the colour of a scarf or what have you. It really blurs the lines between a film and a documentary. Only thing is, there are lots of other characters interviewed whose only purpose seems to be to add to this feeling (especially considering most of the other people being interviewed aren't the real people; they're actors). The exception being the professor, who does actually provide nice details about the characters. Not to mention the real Betty Jean Gooch, whose introduction towards the end is very sobering.

I really do like this film. It's a shame that it didn't get much press and just barely broke even at the box office, because it's one of the more uniquely made films I've seen. That said, I reckon it would have been to the movie's benefit to cut back on the documentary style, and just have the four guys, the professor, and the librarian as interviewees. Another detriment of that style is lazy shots, particularly in the opening, which you can tell is shot with a handheld camera from inside a car - jarring on a rewatch, since all the other camera movements are so smooth. In addition, the film does feel a bit long.

Some films have substance and no spark. Some have a spark, but no substance. This has both, but not quite enough of either. 7/10. Worth the watch.

On-Screen Epilogue Text: Warren Lipka lives in Philadelphia where he has re-enrolled in college.

He is studying filmmaking.