American Animals is the perfect guide for how not to pull off an amateur heist

AMERICAN Animals tells the true story of four college kids who thought they had what it takes to become robbers. To no one’s surprise, they had no idea at all.

HEIST movies — the really good ones, at least — typically leave no incriminating tracks whatsoever.

We are invariably bedazzled by the moving parts of a complicated job going like clockwork. The notion of the law being broken is always forgiven and often forgotten.

American Animals is not your typical heist movie The ‘big job’ here has all the efficiency of a broken watch.

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Everything that can go wrong will go wrong, inviting a different level of tension into the mix altogether.

Barry Keoghan in ‘American Animals’. Picture: Madman Films

This is the true(ish) story of a bunch of Kentucky college kids who hatched a plan to lift a few million bucks’ worth of priceless books from a local library.

It all started with a sensitive, artistically inclined young man named Spencer Reinhard (well played by Barry Keoghan, a rising star after a standout display in last year’s Killing of a Sacred Deer).

Bored with the going-nowhere rhythm of life in his home town, Spencer begins idly fantasising about stealing the books after learning of their value while on an innocuous guided tour of the library.

What seems like a sunny, if seedy daydream takes a darker turn when Spencer shares his bright idea with best bud Warren Lipka (Evan Peters). This easily distracted lad who figures this is just the kind of excitement he has always been looking for.

After immersing themselves in the most boneheaded brand of research imaginable — they basically watch a whole lot of classic robbery flicks — Spencer and Warren bring in two other acquaintances to speed up their get-rich-quick project.

The movie is structured as an odd, but effective blend of dramatic re-enactments mixed with interviews. Picture: Madman Films

These fresh-faced perps are not rocket scientists, it is fair to say. In fact, it is a miracle they even got their (im)perfect crime off the launchpad at all.

The movie is structured as an odd, yet effective blend of staged dramatic re-enactments mixed with interviews with the older-but-no-wiser participants in the scheme.

The real Spencer and Warren are not the most reliable narrators of their own stories. However, their colourful recollections of this folly stop being all that amusing when you realise how casually they went about throwing away the rest of their lives on a whim.

A fine movie which would also make for a ripping multi-part podcast.

AMERICAN ANIMALS (MA15+)

Rating: Three and a half stars (3.5 out of 5)

Director: Bart Layton (The Imposter)

Starring: Barry Keoghan, Evan Peters, Jared Abrahamson, Blake Jenner.

Boys will be boys .... but never men of steal