Ben Affleck made it in Hollywood as an actor and Oscar-winning screenwriter, then proved to be a more-than-reliable filmmaker, with credits including “Gone Baby Gone,” “The Town” and the true-story espionage thriller “Argo” (2012), which won the Oscar for Best Picture. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for “Animals,” the new political crime drama that Affleck directs and stars in. It’s a maddening meander of divergent screenwriting ideas that never coalesce, with dialogue in places so banal and inert it might get an F in a screenwriting 101 class. It also wastes the talents of an impressive cast that includes Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun and Gillian Anderson.
Affleck stars as Mark Kimball, who is running to unseat the mayor of Los Angeles. He’s a former Marine from a working-class family who has become a lawyer and political activist. He’s also in an interracial marriage (Washington in a thankless, screeching part). And he has secrets, like using undocumented workers, that threaten to come out when his biracial son (Christopher Woodley) is kidnapped on Halloween while trick-or-treating with the Kimball’s nanny Cecilia (Adriana Paz), her undocumented boyfriend Ramon (Luis Gerardo Méndez) and their son.
The kidnapper asks for a $7 million ransom. The why is never fully explained, though it’s implied that the hand behind the grab (who sounds like Jigsaw from the “Saw” franchise), had been wronged by Mark in the past. Because of his campaign, Mark decides not to go to the police. He turns to his manager (Yeun) who brings in a fixer (Armstrong) to erase the problem one way (getting the $7 million and charging a 20 percent fee) or another (use your imagination). The Kimballs have to use their $10 million house as collateral, a shock to Washington’s Abigail, who thought they had the cash only to find out Mark had, without conferring with her, pumped it into his campaign.
Abigail is hiding her own indiscretion. The nanny’s son, and Ramon, become critical chess pieces with Mark trailing in the campaign and needing Latino voters. It’s an overly complicated plot, to be sure.
“Animals” (the name a slack reference to the faceless kidnappers), is vaguely reminiscent of what might happen if “Crash” (2005) met “High and Low” (1963), Akira Kurosawa’s great tycoon kidnapping film (recently remade by Spike Lee). But those are far, far better crafted works. The film gets some pickup about halfway in thanks to the arrival of Armstrong as Dayle, the enigmatic fixer. Anderson was a revelation earlier this year in Jane Schoenbrun’s quirky, inventive horror drama “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” and again commands the screen. But even she can’t fix this flaccid fumble.
At Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St. and streaming on Netflix.
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