Review: in 'Animals', Ben Affleck plays a mayoral candidate whose son is kidnapped for a $7 million ransom — and Gillian Anderson saves the night

'Animals', which premiered on Netflix on Friday (Oct. 9), marks Ben Affleck's return to the crime thriller that made his name as a director. He also co-wrote the script with Connor O. McIntyre and Billy Ray, and plays Mark Kimball, a wealthy lawyer running as an independent for mayor of Los Angeles. On Halloween night his son, Danny, is kidnapped and the abductors demand $7 million. The catch: the family's money has all gone into the campaign. The way out is Dayle (Gillian Anderson), a fixer who fronts the ransom — with interest.

The premise is strong and openly inspired by Akira Kurosawa's 'High and Low', a comparison that appears in almost every review published so far. The cast is top-notch: Kerry Washington plays Mark's wife, Abigail; Steven Yeun is the campaign manager; and Adriana Paz and Luis Gerardo Méndez round out the core group. The film never drags, and the long take shot by Robert Elswit is by far its most inspired moment — even Forbes, which gave it a 3 out of 10, credits nearly all of those points to the cinematography.

The problem is that the tension is manufactured through shouting. Characters yell, the camera races from room to room and real danger never sets in. The kidnapper is generic, the bunny masks recall 'The Town' a little too much, and the marriage-in-crisis subplot weighs more than it should. Gillian Anderson, enigmatic and in control of every scene, is the critics' unanimous pick and steals the film. Affleck himself, as actor and director, is too tidy for the man who made 'Gone Baby Gone'. On top of that, the director admitted to using artificial intelligence on the film, mostly in post-production, which left some critics wary.

In this review, based on the film and on its reception among U.S. critics, 'Animals' lands somewhere in the middle: it is competent and has good ideas about power and public image, but it wraps up its threads too easily and ends on a cynical, predictable note. /Film gave it 4 out of 10; What's on Netflix, 3 out of 5 stars. It works as a Friday-night time-killer, but it is a long way from 'The Town' and 'Gone Baby Gone'. Score: 5/10