Ben Affleck's new Netflix movie looks like it could be the perfect October movie
Animals seems like it's going to be tense as anything
In some ways, it's a bit of a surprise that it took Netflix this long to figure out that Ben Affleck's an absolute banker of a star. This year we've already had one big movie with him in a lead role – The Rip, opposite his bestie Matt Damon. Now, there's another one coming down the pike, and Affleck's even more central to its hopes.
Animals not only stars him in the lead, but it's also directed by Affleck himself, which makes it a bit of a double whammy. After an atmospheric teaser a couple of weeks ago, we now have a full trailer to digest, and it does an impressive job of remaining somewhat ambiguous about the movie's plot ahead of a release date of 9 October.
Affleck stars as a politician running to become the mayor of Los Angeles, but it looks like the shiny life he and his wife (Kerry Washington) are projecting for the press might be a bit of a fabrication. In fact, things are tense between them, and that tension spills out dangerously when their son is kidnapped.
The "why" of that kidnapping is likely to be of central importance to the movie's overall plot, and from the glimpses we get in this trailer, it seems like Affleck and Washington both have sizeable secrets from each other to make things more complicated. Getting a ransom together might be just the first problem they're forced to confront. All the while, they'll work with Gillian Anderson as a shady fixer who seems morally dubious in the extreme.
Her shadowy dialogue narrates much of this trailer, and makes it sound like the movie could go to some impressively dark places, but I'm pleased to see that it doesn't actually drop any out and out spoilers on us. It's always nice when a big movie like this hits Netflix without people already having a good sense of what's going to happen in it.
Animals will almost certainly rocket up the Netflix charts when it releases in a few weeks, but it'll be both streaming and in a limited number of cinemas, so keep an eye out in case it's screening near you.
