A Riveting Aussie "Kingdom"

From Vito and Michael Corleone to 'Jimmy' Conway and Henry Hill, classic characters like these have been ingrained in our collective psyche as representations of irrepressible control and power in organized crime. They did all of the 'taking' without any of the asking, and feared no one. To them, family was sacred, and their survival and longevity within their violent world depended almost entirely on that crucial bond. However...when these families saw their authority crumble, their intransigent bonds failed to remain intact, and an inner upheaval occurred when influence from the outside world seeped in.

Such is the predicament that Aussie director David Michôd hones in on in the excellent Animal Kingdom. His directorial debut, it is an uncompromising and gripping story about the weaknesses that people in control try to hide and the shades of evil that surface when that power is lost. Michôd focuses his attention squarely on the lives of the Cody family and how their barriers slowly break down once their criminal exploits catch up to them. The brothers - withdrawn Darren (Luke Ford), drug-addled Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) and disturbed, elder Andrew (Ben Mendelsohn) - see their dealings deteriorate as the cops begin to tighten their grasp. At the center of all this, seventeen-year-old nephew J (newcomer James Frecheville) moves in with the family and is thrust into his uncles' violent schemes, all the while an honest cop (Guy Pearce) tries to coax J out of the family's downward spiral. Michôd delivers a strong and assured hand in scrutinizing the more intimate dynamics of a crime-driven family, rather than their public manifestations. The film is not about sociopathic gangsters pulling off 'the perfect heist' or indulging in excesses of wealth and drugs. Instead, it focuses on the after-effects of these situations: the botched crimes they try to evade and the paranoid undercurrent that plagues their isolated domestic life.

While the film's American trailer markets it as a run-of-the-mill mobster drama, the Australian trailer perfectly captures the unsettling and tense mood that Michôd maintains throughout the narrative (even using Air Supply's "All Out of Love" in a refreshingly different way). Kingdom's strong suits derive not just from its realistic and grounded approach to the material, but also its potent performances. Pearce adds a recognizable face into the mix as the moral figure in the story, whereas Jacki Weaver oozes a calculating, sinister persona as the Cody family's resourceful matriarch. Under tightly-controlled pacing, the story's familiar genre elements are re-oriented to focus on new territory within that world, unraveling deep layers about the characters' psyche and in the process showing us that, yes, even gangsters can be weak and vulnerable, too. It is a kinetic and absorbing film, and assuredly cements Michôd as a filmmaker to watch for.

Animal Kingdom is currently playing at Cinema Village (22 East 12th Street).