To Americans, Australia seems like a utopia. The ultimate vacation destination. Between the idyllic scenery, beyond relaxed attitude, and sun bleached smiling locals with their inherently endearing accents, what’s not to love. But then, every once and a while, you hear about the 100 spiders they have that can kill you in 5 minutes with a single bite. Similarly, every Australian film I’ve ever seen, from 1975’s classic Picnic at Hanging Rock to 2005’s amazing outback western The Proposition has been unfailingly dark and depressing. 2010’s equally great new film Animal Kingdom is no different. So I’m starting to think, maybe Australia is kind of a fucked up place.

Animal Kingdom, from first time writer-director David Michôd, follows Australian crime family the Cody’s, who are apparently based on some real life aussie crooks. Smiling matriarch Janine (Jacki Weaver) presides over her 3 sons as they wage a constant war with police in a never grayer Melbourne. We’re taken into their world through J (James Frecheville), her teenage grandson who has to move in with the gang after his mother overdoses on heroin. The movie opens with him sitting stone-faced next to her body as he watches “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and waits for the ambulance. It seems all these characters have grown used to terrible things. Frecheville carries the movie with his subdued, quiet performance. He never overplays his delicate paradox, even when he has to make the choice between protecting his family and participating in some seriously evil shit.

His 3 uncles are all played well in their varying levels of criminal insanity, with the bitter and unhinged Pope (Ben Mendelsohn) making the biggest impression. His dead-eyed commitment of various crimes is truly hard to watch. Token Australian star Guy Pearce shows up for a while as a detective rocking a badass mustache. He’s reliably solid. But the real star here is Jacki Weaver. Beneath her bleached blond hair and saccharine tongue lies a pitch black heart. She’s seriously scary.

Despite being made on a budget, the look of the movie is aces and never sensationalist. In fact the whole thing is languidly paced, which only adds to the ever-growing sense of dread that pervades it. The minimalist electronic soundtrack by Antony Partos really stands out and gets your heart racing. Towards the end of the film there are some plot elements that could stand to be expanded, but it’s a small problem in the scheme of things. This is a very good movie. An uncompromising look at evil people in a world that doesn’t really seem to care. Beaches and kangaroos it surely is not.

- Whole Milk