It’s unlike anything you’ve seen before.
With memorable performances in Dunkirk and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, it’s clear that Barry Keoghan’s star is on the rise as the Dubliner continues to enjoy an incredibly memorable year.
After impressing us all with roles in the likes of Love/Hate and ’71, Keoghan has grabbed the world’s attention and with Black 47 also set for release, he’s showing no signs of slowing down.
On that note, Keoghan also stars in American Animals and having seen the film, we’re confident in saying that it’s unlike anything else that you’ve seen this year.
When you think of a heist film, you might picture the cool and calm demeanour of Ocean’s Eleven. Maybe you imagine the sharp, smooth and silky chat between Paul Newman and Robert Redford in The Sting?
Well, American Animals flips the genre on its head by showing you how the best laid plans can go very wrong…quickly.
At present, the film has an 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with Entertainment Weekly saying: “American Animals feels like a new kind of true-crime thriller: one that shamelessly rewrites its truths in real time as it goes.” The Hollywood Reporter also said it’s “a crackerjack real-life heist thriller.”
Ok, what’s it about?
American Animals is the unbelievable but entirely true story of four young men who attempt to execute one of the most audacious art heists in U.S. history.
The film revolves around two friends from the middle-class suburbs of Lexington, Kentucky. Spencer (Barry Keoghan), is determined to become an artist but feels he lacks the essential ingredient that unites all great artists – suffering. His closest friend, Warren (Evan Peters), has also been raised to believe that his life will be special, and that he will be unique in some way.
But as they leave the suburbs for universities in the same town, the realities of adult life begin to dawn on them and with that, the realisation that their lives may in fact never be important or special in any way. Determined to live lives that are out of the ordinary, they plan the brazen theft of some of the world’s most valuable books from the special collections room of Spencer’s college library.
Enlisting two more friends, accounting major Eric (Jared Abrahamson) and fitness fanatic Chas (Blake Jenner), and taking their cues from heist movies, the gang meticulously plots the theft and subsequent fence of the stolen artworks. Although some of the group begin to have second thoughts, they discover that the plan has seemingly taken on a life of its own.
Unfolding from multiple perspectives, and incorporating the real-life figures at the heart of the story, writer-director Bart Layton (The Imposter) takes the heist movie into bold new territory.
The film is set to be released in Ireland on September 7 and here’s an extended look at the first scene.
Clip via –Â The Orchard Movies
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