R | 1h 48m | Drama, Suspense, Mystery, Thriller, Crime | 2026
For the first decade or so of his career, Ben Affleck was regarded as little more than a personality-challenged, talentless pretty boy. He bounced back and forth between TV and movies in often uncredited and thankless bit roles. Then Affleck and his boyhood chum Matt Damon hit commercial and critical gold with “Good Will Hunting.”
That movie was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two, including Best Original Screenplay for Affleck and Damon. Recognition of this sort generally leads to bigger and better things, but Affleck returned to one mediocre independent or mainstream movie to the next for another decade.
Despite becoming tabloid fodder for two more decades due to his alternating romances with the Jennifers (Lopez and Garner), Affleck’s professional life finally caught fire in 2007. He wrote and directed “Gone Baby Gone.” The mystery thriller set in his native Boston was met with universal acclaim. Finally, the auteur had arrived.
The release of “Animals,” Affleck’s sixth feature as a director. In addition to cowriting the script, he plays the lead character, Mark Kimball, a former teacher and war veteran running for mayor of Los Angeles. Despite speaking fluent Spanish, Mark is currently behind in the polls with Latin residents; an unnamed Latina woman who doesn’t speak any Spanish now leads.
LA Politics
The situation isn’t lost on Mark, who is at his wit’s end. His campaign manager, Sam (Steven Yeun), tells him that just one more big media buy will put him over the top. Mark realizes this is something the campaign can’t afford, yet he reluctantly approves. This leads to the first of a handful of well-placed plot twists, and it calls into question Mark’s squeaky-clean public image.
This immediately causes a rift between Mark and his dutiful wife, Abby (Kerry Washington), the mother of his preteen son Denny (Christopher Woodley). Everything is going down on Halloween. Denny is off trick-or-treating for a couple hours with the family maid and her son, which gives the Kimballs a chance to strategize with Sam in private.
The next bump in the road is an unavoidable spoiler. A phone call from a man with an electronically altered voice states he has kidnapped Denny and wants $7 million in ransom by midnight. Mark and Sam know this isn’t possible, which baffles an ever-increasingly irritated Abby.
However, the always-thinking Sam has a solution. For a 20 percent commission, a mysterious British woman calling herself Dayle Burton (Gillian Anderson) can come up with cash in short order. Again, Mark grudgingly agrees.
In for a Penny, in for a Pound
A few more big twists are yet to come. The story takes some welcomed and unexpected detours, which steadily amp up the tension to almost unbearable levels. If not for Mark and Abby regularly screaming at each other at top volume and an overabundance of profanity, this could have turned out to be Affleck’s best filmmaking effort to date. As it stands now, that title still belongs to “Gone Baby Gone.”
In six tries, Affleck has released only a single clunker (“Live By Night”) and has pretty much surprised everyone (and that includes me) who previously wrote him off as a lightweight poser.
Keeping the story mostly regulated to nighttime interiors is a challenge for any director, and the narrative never slows down, stalls, or gets static.
Affleck is also improving as an actor and a writer. “Animals” (the meaning of the title is explained halfway through) gets him closer to A-list filmmaker status; this will likely lead to allowing him the pick of the litter for his next project.
Washington and Anderson
The fact that he was able to get both Washington and Anderson, two highly talented but picky actresses, to take on secondary roles speaks volumes. This isn’t to imply either of their performances is less than excellent. Native Chicagoan Anderson’s clipped British accent is light-years better than that of her brittle Margaret Thatcher rendering in the HBO miniseries “The Crown.”
What impressed me most about “Animals” was trying to figure out how it was going to pan out. I thought I’d figured out the ending within the first 20 minutes and was pleasantly pleased that I was surprised at every turn.
The final wrinkle also shows that Mark has undergone a life-changing event and has become a better man in the process. As much as it may have pained him, he did the right thing and it has made him a better human in the process.
“Animals” is now playing in select theaters and streaming on Netflix.
‘Animals’
Director: Ben Affleck
Starring: Ben Affleck, Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun, Gillian Anderson
Running Time: 1 hour 48 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: Oct. 10, 2026
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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