It’s been out for a little while but here’s the first Air Supply backed teaser trailer for David Michôd’s upcoming Australian crime thriller, “Animal Kingdom,” set to screen at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival.
Led by the trio of Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce (plus mustache) alongside Luke Ford, Jacki Weaver, Sullivan Stapleton and James Frecheville, “Animal Kingdom” centers on a 17 year old boy (first timer Frecheville) who must navigate his survival between an explosive criminal family and a cop (Pearce) who thinks he can save him. Here’s the full synopsis:
Welcome to the jungle known as the Melbourne underworld. Animal Kingdom uses this edgy locale to unspool a gripping tale of survival and revenge.
Pope Cody, an armed robber on the run from a gang of renegade detectives, is in hiding, surrounded by his roughneck friends and family. Soon, Pope’s nephew, Joshua “J” Cody, arrives and moves in with his hitherto-estranged relatives. When tensions between the family and the police reach a bloody peak, “J” finds himself at the center of a cold-blooded revenge plot that turns the family upside down.
Wielding a formidable cinematic lexicon, writer/director David Michôd shows complete command of every frame as he shifts between simmering intensity and gut-wrenching drama. There isn’t a false note in the film as it follows through on the tantalizing promise displayed in his short films and unleashes a fierce new voice in Australian cinema.
The film will screen alongside the Michôd scribed, Spencer Susser helmed “Hesher,” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman. Both ‘Kingdom’ and “Hesher” are being produced under the Blue Tongue Films banner co-founded by Michôd, Susser, ‘Kingdom’ star Edgerton and his brother Nash Edgerton, director of 2009 noir-thriller “The Square.”