In the crime-thriller Animals, directed by Ben Affleck — and co-written by him, Connor O. McIntyre and Billy Ray — mayoral candidate Mark Kimball’s life is turned upside down when his son is apparently kidnapped from under the nose of his housemaid.

After a call from the kidnappers and screaming matches about blame, infidelity and financial dilemmas, we get to the big reveal: it was their housemaid and handyman’s son — and not Mark Kimball’s — who was kidnapped by mistake.

If the premise sounds familiar, then you might have either read Ed McBain’s 1959 novel King’s Ransom, or watched Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film High and Low or the recent Spike Lee film Highest 2 Lowest, starring Denzel Washington. Both films are better than Affleck’s — which, by the way, doesn’t acknowledge any inspiration. However, the influence is hard to dismiss.

This doesn’t mean that Animals is a bad movie. It is engaging but mediocre, with some easy shortfalls, stereotypes and cop-outs.

Ben Affleck’s Animals is an engaging but underwhelming crime thriller, borrowing a familiar kidnapping premise while struggling with a squeaky-clean protagonist

Affleck — who plays the central character of the political candidate — is Mark Kimball, and his biggest dilemma is that he is a nice guy with few shades of grey. A hardworking man who checks the laundry list of being a good politician — he was a teacher, a war veteran and rallied for environmental legislation — Mark wants Los Angeles to become a better place.

He addresses Mexicans in Spanish, makes sure that the handyman Ramón (Luis Gerardo Méndez) — whose son gets kidnapped — doesn’t get caught up in legal hassles, and continues with the astronomical ransom demand even when his own son is found. You believe him because his actions convey his moral fibre. You also believe him when he says that he has never had an affair and that he was blackmailed by a staffer who worked on his campaign.

His wife, Abigail Kimball (Kerry Washington), is a different animal. She cheats on Mark with a teacher because of the usual ‘you-don’t-give-me-time’ reason. When a fixer — Dayle Burton (Gillian Anderson) — enters their house and demands everyone come clean about everything, Mark does, but Abigail keeps her secret, using the opportunity to get angry at her husband.

Mark gets better emotional support and level-headedness from his campaign manager, Sam Allison (Steven Yeun), who gets the same level of depth as Abigail, but feels better written because of the performance.

Other than Affleck and Yeun, Anderson gets the best role of the lot as the stern but clear-headed professional whose interest is in making money — in exchange for providing Mark the money — and getting her percentage for the ‘fix’. She can also kill the kidnappers if the situation calls for it and is someone no one wants to mess with.

Giving Mark a nearly squeaky-clean persona works against the film, but it also gives him a moral high ground to comment on America’s problems with illegal immigrants, deportation, healthcare and law enforcement without a tone of reprimand. If anything, Animals is a good showcase of how to balance statement-making messages within a commercial thriller.

The direction — despite a good ‘oner’ (a long, moving single take) — isn’t engaging and the lighting design and cinematography are not eye-catching. This is surprising since the film was shot by Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, Nightcrawler, Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation). More often than not, Animals feels like a made-for-TV movie and not a feature film, despite being a made-for-streaming original film (in comparison with TV, streaming movies have way bigger budgets).

Now, don’t get me wrong. It is a good enough film — perhaps better than most streaming originals — with the usual lack of ingenuity, action-film stereotypes and questions about decisions no adult takes in crisis situations, when a life is on the line.

Streaming on Netflix, Animals is rated suitable for ages 18 and over, featuring scenes that have violence, intimacy and angry vocal reactions

The writer is Icon’s primary film reviewer

Published in Dawn, ICON, November 12th, 2026