By Drew Dietsch
| Printed 9 seconds in the past
I’m a giant shark film fan. A lot in order that I made a whole podcast collection about aquatic creature horror, Fin Flicks. That is all to say that I’m well-versed within the realm of this specific subgenre and was eagerly anticipating Harmful Animals. The thrill on the film had been good and I anticipated to take pleasure in it.
What I didn’t anticipate was it angling to overthrow The Monkey as my favourite movie of the yr.
The Story of Harmful Animals
Harmful Animals facilities round Tucker (Jai Courtney), the charismatic proprietor of an tour firm that takes vacationers out to cage dive with sharks. It seems that Tucker is a serial killer who captures his victims and feeds them to sharks whereas he movies the entire ordeal.
In the meantime, lonely drifter Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is ambling about Australia, on the lookout for some good locations to surf. She has a meet cute with wealthy prettyboy Moses (Josh Heuston) however can’t fairly decide to this new connection. This leads her proper into the ready jaws of Tucker and our survival thriller is underway.
Jai Courtney Offers the Efficiency of the Yr
Tucker is a stupendous villain on the web page, however Jai Courtney breathes unimaginable life into him. I don’t assume I’ve seen a Jai Courtney efficiency that absolutely received me over earlier than, however Harmful Animals offers him the best display screen function of his profession. Tucker is a magnetic monster that instructions the display screen each second he will get. Each little piece we get with him makes him all of the extra terrifying and fascinating.
It’s no hyperbole to say Jai Courtney has delivered my absolute favourite efficiency of the yr. By the point the yr is over, he may additionally be my favourite villain of the yr.
A Shark Film In contrast to Any Different
We’ve been inundated with comparable sorts of shark flicks ever since Jaws determined to be the best film ever made. Harmful Animals did one thing of a minor miracle by crafting a shark story that we’ve by no means seen earlier than. It additionally makes a concerted effort to be sure to perceive the purpose of the film’s title: the damaging animals ain’t the sharks.
I really like sharks in actual life, so it’s at all times been bizarre to be such a fan of films that paint them as monsters. Harmful Animals manages to make an ethical assertion about sharks as pure beings whereas additionally delivering the bloody items.
Harmful Animals has a dedicated forged, knockout route, a stellar script, it seems to be beautiful, the edit is the tightest I’ve seen from any film this yr, and it’s a ripper of a flick. In case you are on the lookout for an authentic story that fires on all cylinders, you’ve got to put aside a while for Harmful Animals. I do know it in all probability received’t be anybody else’s favourite film of the yr, nevertheless it’s actually aiming for the highest of the heap in my e-book.
