There may be a point to James T. North’s “Filthy Animals,” a tale of pedophile-hunting vigilantism and exploited employee revenge in the San Pedro, Lomita corner of Greater Los Angeles. If there is, North makes it ham-fistedly and in an almost wholly unsatisfying way.
“Animals” is a picture that stumbles through its narrative, grafting two unpleasant and aimless tales together and struggling to stay on task as pointless scenes get in the way of that “point” North’s supposedly making.
Taking a line from a fake movie seen in “Home Alone” as its title, “Filthy Animals” is meant to play as a dark comedy about a couple of murderous stoner-surfers who read “articles” on the Internet to ID pedophiles so that they can “go hunting” and do what “the cops” couldn’t.
It’s not funny, not ever. Repellent? You bet.
Austan Wheeler makes his feature film debut as Lawrence, aka “Lars,” a coke-snorting strip-club addict with a real thing for “pedos.” His ex-con pal Freddy (Ryan Patrick Brown) wears out the weights in his granny’s garage, stuffs himself on muscle bulk supplements and most anything else edible, and follows Lars into battle.
“I seek justice on those who hurt innocent children!”
The film opens with a suspect (Peter Larney) talking to an apparently kidnapped and muzzled child on Christmas Eve. But before that, the guys have to trick and bluff their way in to visit ex-con sex offender Lester (screen veteran Raymond J. Barry) at his chic, well-decorated house, interrupting the guy’s operatic-listening bliss.
To get in, the duo cross paths with florist Bella (Mena Elizabeth Santos), who chafes under the yoke of her greedy boss (Corinne Chooey) and a childhood that we suspect included its share of bullying and racism. Lars notes this and offers to “help her out” by making that boss go away — “buried alive, with fresh flowers” planted on top of her.
Bella lets us think she’s sorely tempted.
There are three principal crimes committed in this narrative, that first home invasion and assault and another in the finale, and the “crime” Bella is willing to commit to get some justice from her job.
They don’t tie together in any expected or for that matter meaningful way.
The two surfer/louts take time to hit that strip club, to remember “Freddy Cakes”‘ father visiting him in prison and for him to spend time with his Croatian Baba (granny), who loves Westerns.
North, making his feature debut, burns up screen time showing us a student-film-quality black and white Western that Baba and grandson watch. We see a lot of joints smoked and rolled, with Bella’s “rebellion” extending to using pages from a Bible (Romans 3:8, “Let us do evil that good may result”) as her latest blunt.
Ridiculing that is the point of the film. But North puts so much effort into making his vigilantes as “evil” as the people they “hunt” that he loses the plot. He shoehorns in the whole “Baba” bit to “explain” Freddy’s Old West roid-head persona, which is a cumbersome distraction. Clues as to Lars’ motivations go nowhere.
And the opening assault, which could have been the whole movie, with our victim pleading and arguing vehemently that he’s paid his price to society and morality, so “Who are you to judge?” gets lost.
Whatever Bella is up to is evil on a different level, and just as clumsily handled. Frankly, her whole corner of the story has no reason for being here, aside from that one Biblical blunt moment.
A dark comedy without much in the way of laughs, “Filthy Animals” serves up a string of characters, each repellent in this way or several others, no one to root for, no “message” to take to heart and with an ending so unsatisfying as to leave one slack-jawed and muttering one question.
What the hell was THAT all about?
Rating: unrated, graphic violence, drug abuse, strip club stripping
Cast: Austan Wheeler, Ryan Patrick Brown,
Mena Elizabeth Santos, Corinne Chooey, Peter Larney and Raymond J. Barry.
Credits: Scripted and directed by James T. North. A Freestyle release.
Running time: 1:36
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