By

American Animals

The consequences of stupidity

True story. In 2004, four privileged, misguided young men who had clearly watched too many caper flicks plotted to steal several valuable rare books from their university’s special collections library. Writer-director Bart Layton’s tense and energetic docudrama intersperses a well acted dramatization with some talking-head interviews with the actual morons, and plays around with the time frame. I’d call all this visual trickery film-school flash if it didn’t work so well. And finally, unlike most heist movies, this examination of memory and objective truth focuses on the consequences of one’s actions.  (116 min)