'American Animals' Trailer: The Most Audacious Art Heist In U.S. History

By Chris Evangelista/May 8, 2018 2:00 pm EST

A new trailer for the stylish American Animals is here, showcasing the sort-of-true story about the most audacious art heist in U.S. history. Watch the American Animals trailer below.

Remember Barry Keoghan, the weird boy from The Killing of a Sacred Deer? He's back, in another kind-of-animal-themed story! Keoghan leads a cast that includes Evan Peters, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson, Ann Dowd, and Udo Mother Effing Kier. The film is American Animals, and it purports to tell "the unbelievable but entirely true story of four young men who attempt to execute one of the most audacious art heists in U.S. history." Watch the American Animals trailer now.

American Animals Trailer

This doesn't look particularly original, but it certainly looks entertaining and stylish. /Film's Ben Pearson saw American Animals at Sundance, and came away (mostly) impressed. In his review, Ben wrote the film "conducts an interesting harmony between fiction and non-fiction, intercutting dramatic scenes featuring his primary cast (Barry Keoghan, Evan Peters, Jared Abrahamson, Blake Jenner) with actual interviews of the real-life thieves they're playing," and added:

American Animals is a gripping study of the importance of perception, the fluidity and inconsistency of memory, and the unforeseen ramifications of one of the most audacious heists in American history. I wish it had a little more on its mind, but it mostly works as an enjoyable piece of entertainment that doesn't need too much analysis to appreciate.

American Animals opens on June 1, 2018.

Spencer (Barry Keoghan), is determined to become an artist but feels he lacks the essential ingredient that unites all great artists – suffering. His closest friend, Warren (Evan Peters), has also been raised to believe that his life will be special, and that he will be unique in some way. But as they leave the suburbs for universities in the same town, the realities of adult life begin to dawn on them and with that, the realization that their lives may in fact never be important or special in any way. Determined to live lives that are out of the ordinary, they plan the brazen theft of some of the world's most valuable books from the special collections room of Spencer's college Library. Enlisting two more friends, accounting major Eric (Jared Abrahamson) and fitness fanatic Chas (Blake Jenner), and taking their cues from heist movies, the gang meticulously plots the theft and subsequent fence of the stolen artworks. Although some of the group begin to have second thoughts, they discover that the plan has seemingly taken on a life of its own. Unfolding from multiple perspectives, and innovatively incorporating the real-life figures at the heart of the story, writer-director Bart Layton (The Imposter) takes the heist movie into bold new territory.