We have now gotten two remakes of Akira Kurosawa’s “High and Low,” and yet not a single new rendition of “Stray Dog.”
asserted
We → get → Dog
Lamentable though that imbalance may be — you may have your own Kurosawa favorite — it’s not hard to see the contemporary appeal of 1963’s “High and Low.”
uncertain
it → ’ → High
It’s an ingenious plot.
asserted
It → ’ → ?
A wealthy businessperson believes his son has been taken by kidnappers.
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son → believe → kidnappers
But they’ve mistakenly taken the wrong boy: his chauffeur’s son.
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they → take → boy
Paying the ransom becomes an anguished moral dilemma, rife with socioeconomic tension.
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Paying → pay → tension
Last year, Spike Lee moved the drama to New York and the music industry in “Highest 2 Lowest.”
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Lee → move → Lowest
Now, in a new Netflix movie, Ben Affleck has transferred “High and Low” to Los Angeles and politics.
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Affleck → transfer → Angeles
“Highest 2 Lowest” brought some lively scenes to the table: a rap battle between Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky, a subway car full of Yankee fans shouting “Boston sucks!”
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Boston → bring → fans
But Affleck, who directed, co-wrote and stars in “Animals,” never finds much of a pulse in his lackluster Kurosawa riff for Netflix.
asserted
who → direct → Netflix
In transferring the story to Los Angeles, Affleck, who wrote the script with Connor O. McIntyre and Billy Ray, opens the hostage story up to new thematic fronts — divorce, public persona, duplicity — that have meaningful reverberations for Affleck, a Hollywood A-lister who has navigated fluctuating opinion polls and much-publicized personal dramas for the better part of his career.
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who → transfer → career
Yet those parallels aren’t enough to enliven this far-from-wild “Animals,” an Affleck-directed movie well shy of his better “A”-titled films, “Argo” and “Air.”
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parallels → enliven → films
The movie opens with political ad artifice.
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movie → open → artifice
Mark Kimball (Affleck) is running for mayor of Los Angeles, and in the film’s glossy beginning, he earnestly pledges transparency.
asserted
he → run → transparency
But once the opening credits have rolled in “Animals
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credits → roll → ?
,” a less rosy reality sets in.
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reality → set → ?
As Mark smiles his way through campaign headquarters, his campaign manager Sam (Steven Yeun) tells him their big ad spend didn’t help enough.
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spend → smile → him
He’s still trailing the incumbent by four points.
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He → trail → points
Mark maintains his optimistic front, but inside his office, panic is setting in.
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panic → maintain → office
To bankroll the ads, Mark has mortgaged his home.
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Mark → bankroll → home
If he loses the election, Mark says, he’ll lose his house, and, soon after, his wife.
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he → lose → house
His wife, Abigail (Kerry Washington), a psychologist, is cheating on him.
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wife → cheat → him
Mark’s unaware but we can sense their relationship is largely a facade.
asserted
relationship → ’ → ?
Mark also runs on a pro-immigrant platform but when the couple’s housekeeper Cecilia (Adriana Paz) asks them to hire her undocumented immigrant husband Ramon (Luis Gerardo Méndez), they decline out of fear it could harm Mark’s campaign.
uncertain
it → run → campaign
On Halloween night, Mark and Abigail’s son, Denny, is kidnapped.
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son → kidnap → night
A phone call comes: $7 million to save him.
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call → come → him
Except because Mark has borrowed against everything they have, raising the money is more complicated.
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raising → borrow → money
On Sam’s advice, they call in a mysterious crisis fixer, Dayle Burton (Gillian Anderson), who, we gather, will inevitably compromise Mark’s pledges against corruption.
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we → call → corruption
From the start, it’s a crisis for both the kidnapped boy and Mark’s political campaign.
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it → ’ → boy
Even in such a fraught moment, Mark is encouraged by his campaign manager to consider how things will appear.
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things → encourage → manager
That’s doubly true when it turns out that the kidnappers have unwittingly taken not the Kimballs’ son but Cecilia and Ramon’s.
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kidnappers → ’ → son
Affleck is a savvy and thoughtful filmmaker who can deftly weave human stories, genre mechanics and social issues together.
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who → weave → stories
But “Animals” feels narratively underpowered and melodramatically forced.
asserted
Animals → feel → ?
It offers Affleck some good opportunities to flaunt his Spanish and comment on the false fronts that exist both in public officialdom and intimate relationships.
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that → offer → officialdom
But it doesn’t come anywhere close to matching the propulsion of Kurosawa.
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it → come → Kurosawa
Affleck, who earlier this year sold an artificial intelligence company to Netflix for more than $500 million, has said he used AI in the making of “Animals.”
asserted
he → sell → Animals
It’s difficult to tell where.
asserted
It → ’ → ?
But the greater issue is that “Animals” generally appears flat and visually bland, lacking the human textures the story needs.
asserted
story → appear → textures
But before “Animals” loses its grip, Gillian Anderson casts a momentary spell over the film.
asserted
Anderson → lose → film
In a brief, underwritten role, Anderson — sensational earlier this year in “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” — elevates the film.
asserted
Anderson → elevate → film
…and 2 more, not listed.
The Aporia
