The film industry is constantly changing and growing. For example, the bushrangers have become more urban and their crime more intense because film is focusing more on suburban working class lifestyles rather than the outback (Simpson, 1999: 24). Animal Kingdom and American Gangster are two different, yet similar films, and both are within the genre of crime. Being that American Gangster is not an Australian film, but rather an American film, it is interesting to observe the difference between these two films and what specifically makes Animal Kingdom Australian.
David Michod’s film, Animal Kingdom, brings the viewer to a suburban dwelling that focuses on the Cody family; a criminal family caught up in drug dealing, robbery, and possibly even murder, with the prime matriarch of the family being the mother, Janine. Janine is still taking care of her three sons (terrifying sociopath Pope, cowardly Darren, erratic drug addict Craig) when she adds her grandson Josh or “J” to her family. “J” joins the family as a result of his mother’s overdose. Interestingly, the alpha male does not lie within the family, but instead is the close family friend, Barry Brown. All these men are engaged in different criminal activities and with J entering the family; it’s difficult to not get sucked in. J is the weak member of the group, and as Leckie (the detective) states, “You may think that, because of the circles you move in or whatever, that you’re one of the strong creatures, but you’re not”, and we all know, especially in suburbs like these, only the strong survive (Animal Kingdom).
American Gangster, by Ridley Scott, portrays the life of an American drug lord, Frank Lucus, who takes great pride in his scams, and proudly boasts about the murders that he committed. At the same time, Frank brings to the viewer’s attention the real wholesale corruption that took place in a time of great national turmoil. Frank brings his family into the drug operation to help his empire grow and they become a family full of corruption and demise. The other key character, relentlessly honest Richie Roberts, is a New York police officer who is driven and determined to find the mastermind who is smuggling heroin in from Vietnam.
Exactly what defines the Australian crime genre? This is an issue that has been discussed by many Australian critics and writers over the years. After further analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s original three person model of crime (Criminal, Detective, and Victim), the relationships that each of these characters share effects their roles in the film and can make the connection between two, more or less important than the third. “This double focus is important because of a common tendency to equate crime with the gangster film,” (Moran and Vieth, 2006: 145). Many authors took this viewpoint and inevitably acquired this understanding of the gangster film as being intrinsically American; however, this is a false ideology and looking at the crime genre as a whole through this prospective is not useful when it comes to considering crime outside of American film. Instead, it is important that we realize there were many films in the genre of crime before we began the glorification of the American gangster in early, Prohibition-era films. Further, this brings up the main idea of how to look at Australian crime, which is not as a genre as a whole, but instead as “a series of different subtypes that vary, parallel, repeat and even discard different elements to be found in the genre as a whole,” due to the crime and criminal relationship of the film. (Moran and Vieth, 2006: 146).
Both Animal Kingdom and American Gangster can be considered gangster films; however, Animal Kingdom embodies some of the key ideas of an Australian crime film in a way that American Gangster does not. In Animal Kingdom, the relationship the Cody brothers, specifically Pope (Criminal), and “J” (Victim) build throughout the film is a dynamic one that inevitably leads to the complete destruction of the Cody family. “J” makes the most interesting dramatic device for observing this family. One sees things through his eyes; how people only gradually show their true colors and how trust can be lost in an instant. The teen realizes survival of the fittest is no game; it’s a way of life, and eventually death, as he takes the life of his uncle Pope in the final scene of the film. Detective Leckie (Detective) tries to give “J” a way out, but the relationship between “J” and Pope is of such intensity, Leckie becomes of little importance and “J” takes things into his own hands.
As stated before, the relationship between the crime and criminal is important in distinguishing subgenres. Throughout the entirety of the film, crime is occurring in all sorts of demeanors by “J”’s gangster uncles which allows the movie to fit into different subgenres such as Theft as Business (Barry and Pope rob banks), or Fugitive (Pope being on the run from the law). However, the final crime is what flips the movie around and gives it a final subgenre of crime. The victim, “J”, now becomes the criminal and the death of Pope is his crime. “The motivation is to seek to turn the tables on others, to outwit and outdo those in authority and in control, to administer a kind of rough justice” is how one describes the subgenre of Robbery as Fun (Moran and Vieth, 2006: 147). I did not take this subgenre’s title in a literal meaning, but instead took a deeper analysis of its actual definition. After the death of Barry, Pope takes control of the family and tries to become the alpha male. “J” killing Pope, or as I looked at it ‘robbing his life’, signifies his ability to gain justice and overcome those who believed they were more powerful than him.
American Gangster can be looked at as the ‘classic’ gangster film that uses a rebellious figure of the criminal and the hierarchical structure of the criminal organization both to challenge and to ironize capitalism and the business ethic. It encompasses many of the ideas that were originally thought of as a gangster film, before authors such as Neale pointed out a deeper understanding of what a crime film entails. American Gangster does not portray a distinguishable relationship between its characters in the way that Animal Kingdom does. Frank is looked at as a loner in the film, not forming any kind of special bond or relationship with either his Victims (all of America) or Detective (Richie) to influence the film in one way or another. American Gangster instead just exposes the mythologized gangster that Hollywood, not Australia, has become known for.
Animal Kingdom. David Michod. Film. 2010.
‘Crime’ in Moran and Veith, Film in Australia: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, p. 73-86
Simpson, Catherine (1999) ‘Suburban Subversions; Women’s Negotiation of Space in Contemporary Australian Cinema’, in Metro Magazine #1 18, 24-32
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