By Dan Skip Allen

I’ve been a fan of Ben Affleck for quite a while now. It’s not because he’s from the Boston, Massachusetts area either. I first saw him in Kevin Smith’s “Mallrats” but then went back and saw him in Richard Linklater’s “Dazed and Confused”, “School Ties” and “Clerks”. It wasn’t until I saw him opposite Matt Damon, his real life childhood friend, in “Good Will Hunting,” that I fell in love with him as an actor. He and Damon are a tremendous team, but he has also made a great career for himself opposite his friend. Especially as a director of some amazing movies like “The Town,” “Gone Baby Gone” and “Argo. In “Animals” he does double duty as the director and star. It’s a story I haven’t seen him do before, so I was excited to watch it.

Mark Kimball (Ben Affleck) is a successful Los Anglican citizen who is just happening to be running for mayor. He has a beautiful wife, Abigail (Kerry Washington), and son Denny (Christopher Woodley). On the outside, they seem like a happy family. They show a beautiful family on their campaign commercial, but behind the scenes, there are problems involving the campaign funds. Money has been allocated, which spreads him thin to build up this man in the marketing department, but when the unthinkable happens, his son gets kidnapped, and his world goes upside down. He enlists his campaign manager Sam (Strven Yuen) to help by getting a fixer, Dayle (Gillian Anderson) to lend them the money they need for the ransom, $7 million dollars, the kidnapper has demanded. Things as they do don’t go exactly as they planned, though.

This film is written by Connor O. McIntyre and Billy Ray. They are writers I wasn’t familiar with before watching this movie. It’s obvious to me that they were inspired by one film in particular. That is the great Akira Kurosawa movie “High and Low”. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Spike Lee, the great director in his own right, made his own fantastic version of this great movie last year called “Highest 2 Lowest”. These two versions are different in a few ways. One takes place in New York City and the other in Los Angeles. One involves a music mogul while the other involves a politician. One involves a Black family, and the other involves a mixed-race family and Mexican family. Other than these, the films have a lot of similarities and connections to the great original movie.

Affleck is a good director who has proven it over and over again, but lately, some of his movies have been misfires. Such as “Live by Night” and this one, “Animals”. This film has shown he has lost his touch as a director. His acting shows that in this film as well. I myself wouldn’t mind him as a real-life politician in Massachusetts, but I didn’t believe him one bit as a potential candidate for mayor of Los Angeles. He comes across as a narcissistic man who is only thinking about himself, not his wife and family. Even though the script would have you think otherwise. There are moments where he and Washington try to hash things out, but I don’t believe them as husband and wife. I know Afhas had his domestic issues with multiple wives in the past, but I don’t think those previous real-life problems translated very well here. I wished they had. His direction of these scenes was not great, just okay for lack of a better word. He does have a climactic scene that was directed well, but that doesn’t make up for the rest of the movie.

As in the original film, there is a twist which, if you haven’t seen, I won’t spoil here. Honestly I didn’t know this was a reimagining of the classic “High and Low”, but once I knew what the true nature of this film was I was less and less interested in it as it went along. Once you see something like in “High and Low” done twice, it gets old. I liked Spike Lee’s version better than this one. The scenes involving the ransom money were done much better in “Highest 2 Lowest”. That film had an amazing chase sequences, and this one was pretty much set in one location. It was done fine, but not as good as the other one. If this sequence was done in a better way, maybe I would have liked the movie better. I don’t think Affleck handled this material as much as Lee or Kurosawa did.

“Animals”, not the first film with this title, is the latest movie directed by and starring Ben Affleck. I’m sure I understand why he would want to direct this movie. It’s based on a film considered one of the greatest of all time. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t do it second he did it third. The more you copy a great concept like “High and Low” the less original it feels. I liked it when he made his own new or original movies. Some set in my hometown of Boston. I know he is capable of making great movies, as evident by “Argo”. This one was okay but not great. The acting was fine, not award worthy. The direction was okay except the end scene, which was pretty good but still not as good as the Lee sequence in his version of this story. I wanted to love this film, but it ended up being an underwhelming reimagining of a great film. Not even second best.

🌟 🌟 ½ stars