Film
American Animals + Director Q&A
- Director
- Bart Layton
- Certificate
- 15
- Running Time
- 117 mins
Audaciously blending heist thriller with true crime documentary, US director Bart Layton‘s follow-up to The Imposter does the I, Tonya thing with competing unreliable witnesses interviewed years after the events depicted. The difference here is that the interviewees are real participants in what became known as the ‘Transy Book Heist’ of 2004.
Barry Keoghan, Evan Peters, Jared Abrahamson and Blake Jenner play a privileged, suburban quartet of bored college age pals who come up with what they foolishly believe to be the perfect robbery: lifting a bunch of rare and valuable books (Audubon’s The Birds of America, etc) from Kentucky’s Transylvania University, which are guarded by a sole elderly librarian. Naturally, they prepare by watching every heist movie they can lay their hands on, from The Killing to Ocean’s 11, and then set off in a bunch of old geezer disguises. More than this it would be unfair to disclose, but it’s no spoiler to reveal that things do not go entirely according to plan in this funny, playful and suspenseful drama. Layton will be present for a Q&A after the Watershed’s preview screening.
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
