52
Metascore
7 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75Slant MagazineSlant MagazineIt may be baked with the same ingredients that come in your standard mumblecore starter kit, but because of Matt D'Elia's indebtedness to other movies, the film follows a different recipe altogether.
- 75New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoAmerican Animal is a wildly experimental debut for D'Elia, who uses hand-held digital cameras and lots of jump cuts. It is well-acted and features witty repartee.
- 70Village VoiceMichael AtkinsonVillage VoiceMichael AtkinsonBizarre, off-putting, and finally demanding of rubberneck respect, this fish-tank indie never leaves a rather lovely duplex apartment, occupied by an unemployed Everyman (Brendan Fletcher) and his roommate, Jimmy (director Matt D'Elia).
- 60Time OutDavid FearTime OutDavid FearWhile American Animal's finely tuned filmmaking is leagues above the usual Indiewood sloppiness, all the movie-quoting manic episodes feel like empty grandstanding; it's hard to tell where D'Elia's own psychotic cinephilia ends and the character's begins.
- 60Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleLos Angeles TimesRobert AbeleAt first American Animal has a mysterious unreality to it, a strange diorama about easy leisure's emptiness. But when James admits he's taken a job - upending the roomies' slacker utopia - American Animal becomes a philosophically strident evening of speechifying local theater (topic: human evolution).
- 33The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayThe A.V. ClubNoel MurraySeen as some kind of absurdist, meta-textual horror story, American Animal almost works. In every other way? It's fuckin' poopy-loopy.
- It's showtime!" says Jimmy, the one-man band of American Animal. And for Matt D'Elia, who plays him in this hour and a half of pretentious mind games, it certainly is. There are other players, but it's all about Jimmy, portrayed with a free-associative, Jim Carrey-like mania.