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American Animal

Play trailer Poster for American Animal R Released May 18, 2012 1h 35m Comedy Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
59% Tomatometer 17 Reviews 53% Popcornmeter 100+ Ratings
A humorous battle of wills ensues when a young man (Matt D'Elia), who is borderline crazy and terminally ill, learns that his best friend and roommate (Brendan Fletcher) is leaving for a new job.

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American Animal

Critics Reviews

View All (17) Critics Reviews
Robert Abele Los Angeles Times "American Animal" becomes a philosophically strident evening of speechifying local theater (topic: human evolution). Rated: 2/5 May 31, 2012 Full Review William Goss Film.com The film equivalent of being cornered at a house party by someone's coked-out friend of a friend until your ride home is ready to bounce. May 18, 2012 Full Review V.A. Musetto New York Post It is well-acted and features witty repartee. Look for more good things to come from this talent. Rated: 3/4 May 18, 2012 Full Review Frank Lovece Film Journal International Self-indulgent indie about a trust-fund kid who thinks he's found the answer to the human experience. Whit Stillman it's not. May 18, 2012 Full Review Fred Topel Screen Junkies I think American Animal is an exercise in pure creativity, as in creativity in a vacuum with no consequence of narrative. May 14, 2012 Full Review Drew McWeeny HitFix American Animal deserves to be seen, but more than that, it deserves to launch D'Elia as a filmmaker of note, and I'm curious to see where he goes from here. May 14, 2012 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (21) audience reviews
Audience Member A pretty mess of a movie. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member A fine example of pretentious, self-congratulatory indie filmmaking. What the writer-director believes is an avant garde look into the nature of madness and friendship is more like being forced to endure the worst slam poetry reading and ego-driven art exhibit imagable. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member Wholly crap this movie is so torture. Matt D'Elia please never make another movie. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Audience Member This film might annoy the hell out of people, but I just loved it! Jimmy is a truly original character that Matt D'Elia has created and he does a damn good job. It's one of the most twisted art house films I've seen in a long time with a very interesting message underneath all it's manic self-indulgence. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Audience Member Should people who did not watch an entire movie be allowed to write a review? That is the question I was pondering about before writing this review, because I did not watch the entire movie. To be precise, at 44 minutes and 34 seconds I stopped watching. Why? because it simply wasn't entertaining enough, it did not touch me, it did nothing to me. Is the movie bad? Not super bad. But definately not fun enough. It's about these two dudes, losers, one of which seems to be very ill, but doesn't act ill, but more stupid, a bit like a lunatic. The other is the more responsible one. Then, two dumb girls enter the scene, they all hang out together doing stupid shit. The acting is very poor and the script doesn't help, mainly because half of the jokes are based on them literally not understanding eachother. "What?", "What did you say?", "Say that again?", the viewer grows tired of that, especially if that happens ALL THE TIME! So I lost interest in 15 minutes, stuck around for another half hour, then I had a snack and when I realized after 1 hour that I did not miss the paused movie at all, well, than I quit. Sorry guys, I tried, I failed, now it's your turn! :-) Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member This movie seems like a vehicle for the main actor to show off his versaitility as an actor and it is successful at that but it also has a lot of fun asking deep philosophical questions about man and humanity. This film is worth a look. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/17/23 Full Review Read all reviews
American Animal

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Movie Info

Synopsis A humorous battle of wills ensues when a young man (Matt D'Elia), who is borderline crazy and terminally ill, learns that his best friend and roommate (Brendan Fletcher) is leaving for a new job.
Director
Matt D'Elia
Producer
Matt D'Elia, Julian King, Patrick Sayre
Screenwriter
Matt D'Elia
Distributor
Screen Media Ventures
Production Co
American Moving Pictures, AWOL Film
Rating
R (Strong Sexuality|Graphic Nudity|Some Drug Use|Pervasive Language)
Genre
Comedy, Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
May 18, 2012, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Mar 8, 2017
Runtime
1h 35m
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