68
Metascore
40 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyBoth as a writer and director, Layton delivers the dramatic goods here with the skill of a pro at the top of his game while adding the rueful perspective of time's reassessment of youthful indiscretions; this has to rate among the most accomplished and fully realized big-screen debuts of recent times.
- 90Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganScreen DailyFionnuala HalliganAmerican Animals requires many cuts and perspectives which are second-nature to an accomplished documentarian, yet the drama here also seems effortless and seamlessly integrated.
- 88Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreAmerican Animals is a tense, taut sober and occasionally silly thriller that reminds us that the Caribbean Island at the end of the Hollywood heist is always a mirage.
- 83Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattEntertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattA movie seemingly custom-made for the era of alternative facts, American Animals feels like a new kind of true-crime thriller: one that shamelessly rewrites its truths in real time as it goes.
- 75The Film StageDaniel SchindelThe Film StageDaniel SchindelAmerican Animals is a legitimately exciting, funny, suspenseful, and at one point deeply upsetting crime film, ably demonstrating a command of genre trappings in service of a narrative about people warped by those very clichés.
- 63Slant MagazineKeith WatsonSlant MagazineKeith WatsonAs he showed in "The Imposter," writer-director Bart Layton knows how to spin a compelling yarn.
- 58IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichAmerican Animals is fiercely entertaining from start to finish, even when its characters are acting so dumb that you start to suspect they still have some more evolving to do.
- 50The PlaylistJordan RuimyThe PlaylistJordan RuimyAll four actors are perfectly fine here, but the set-up is predictably conventional.