ANIMAL KINGDOM

David Michod's "Animal Kingdom" is a brilliant and genuinely disturbing crime movie from Australia about a family of criminal psychopaths that make the Barker brood seem like pussycats. Actually, the analogy between the Barkers and the Codys here is an apt one since they are both ruled by a particularly tough old broad with a penchant for planting big wet kisses on the mouths of their criminal sons. As 'Ma Cody' Jackie Weaver is superb, (she was Oscar-nominated), though the central character is her grandson 'J' who comes to live with the family after his mother has overdosed on heroin and through whose eyes the unfolding events are seen. He's played by James Frecheville as an uncomprehending lout in way over his head and wanting out. As the policeman trying to help him get out Guy Pearce is outstanding. An American film dealing with the same material would almost certainly have played it as an action picture but here the killings are chillingly cool and the perpetrators are characters out of a nightmare. Very unsettling.