'American Animals' Poster: "The Perfect Heist Is A Work Of Fiction"

This looks like a fan-made poster, and I mean that as a high compliment. We spend a lot of time complaining about how awful most studio-produced posters look these days, but this is not one of those cases. I want to give some serious props to The Orchard and the team that put this one together. I love the layout of the characters walking atop Audubon's Birds of America, a $10 million book that serves as the primary object that this film's young amateur thieves want to steal. And the way the flamingo is contorted looks like an "S", like the Superman logo; these characters think they're bulletproof, too, but they learn a hard lesson when things don't exactly go according to plan.

I caught the movie earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, and I'll have an interview with writer/director coming up closer to the movie's release. In the meantime, check out an excerpt from my review:

As the heist itself unfolds, the movie transitions from the goofy, childlike thrills of possibility to the cost of following through on a selfish, boneheaded plan. Ann Dowd's librarian adds a human obstacle to their plan, and their suspenseful confrontation with her sets off a string of screw-ups that sends the movie racing to its conclusion. Evan Peters is phenomenal as Warren, doing some of the best work of his career as he encourages the rest of the team to buy into his delusion that they're capable of pulling this thing off. Blake Jenner is the last to join the team, but absolutely explodes off the screen, pure emotion raging beneath rippling muscles.

Here's the official synopsis:

AMERICAN ANIMALS is the extraordinary and thrilling true story of four friends who brazenly attempt to execute one of the most audacious art heists in U.S. history.

Centering on unpredictable wild child Warren (Evan Peters) and aspiring artist Spencer (Barry Keoghan), two friends from the middle-class suburbs of Lexington, Kentucky, the film follows the duo through college life at separate universities, as adult pressures begin to weigh heavily on their futures. Realizing their lives may never be important, they organize the brazen theft of some valuable books from the special collections library of Spencer's college, including Audubon's Birds of America, valued at $10 million. Enlisting two more friends, budding accountant Eric (Jared Abrahamson) and fitness fanatic Chas (Barry Jenner), the gang meticulously plots the theft and subsequent fence of the stolen volumes, taking cues from popular heist movies. But the thieves' plans go awry, placing their bright futures in limbo.

Unfolding from multiple perspectives, and shifting between the fictionalized central narrative and documentary-style interviews with the real-life figures on which the story is based, writer-directed Bart Layton (The Imposter) elevates the heist movie to bold and thrilling new heights.

American Animals arrives in theaters on June 1, 2018.