Animals (2026)

Animals is the second attempt in as many years to remake Kurosawa's High and Low after Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest. The idea in each case is the same. A powerful man believes his son is kidnapped only to find out it is the son of a staff person kidnapped by mistake and the fallout from this exposes the problems inherent in our stratified societies. In this version of the story we follow a likely to be successful candidate running to be mayor of LA just as he is embroiled in the campaign. While I felt like Lee's film last year turned the questions of the story into something less interesting, this one I feel focused on more of what I was interested in. However Animals feels like it squanders those questions in its final act. 

Affleck sets up his moral dilemma quite effectively. His and Washington's characters are very much a balance between relatable to the suburban audience this film is aimed at, and compromised in ways that should make that audience uncomfortable. And as the plot works through its elements, that same audience is, with the mirror held up to it, asked to reflect on a series of problems. But the film doesn't entirely make its audience reckon with the consequences. I wish Animals had been bolder. It's like the set up was all there but then they pulled back and gave what ends up being a rather standard feeling sort of ending. 

The climax mitigates a lot of what could have been really uncomfortable circumstances. There is some Hollywood, out of nowhere "twists" which feel forced. It also gives the audience a bit of a chance to breathe, and maybe not have to wrestle as hard with what they are watching as they might have. The good guys win and the bad guys get what's coming to them. All can be right again with the world. The film sort of self-consciously attempts to suggest some doom with its very last scenes, indicating that the good guys cover it up in a way that is less than ethical, but since the film has established its happy ending as effectively as it does, it almost seems to be suggesting, and it is easy for the audience to buy into the idea that, the cover up is for the best. 

Perhaps one day there will be a truly good adaptation of High and Low that lives up to the legacy. Animals, while not entirely a lost cause, doesn't achieve this.   

Animals

Starring: Ben Affleck, Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, Adriana Paz, Luis Gerardo Méndez, Steven Yeun, Ray Fisher

Director: Ben Affleck

Writers: Connor O. McIntyre, Billy Ray, Ben Affleck