ANIMAL KINGDOM tells the gripping tale of seventeen year-old J (James Frecheville), as he fights for survival in a vicious criminal family and the detective (Guy Pearce, The King’s Speech and Memento) who tries to save him. Pope Cody (Ben Mendelsohn), an armed robber on the run from a gang of renegade detectives, is in hiding, surrounded by roughneck friends and family. Soon, Pope’s nephew, J, arrives and moves in, but when tensions between the family and corrupt cops reach breaking point, J finds himself at the centre of a cold-blooded revenge attack that turns the family upside down.
Writer and director David Michôd’s brutal and captivating depiction of Melbourne’s criminal underbelly heralds the arrival of an intense new voice to contemporary Australian Cinema.
