by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Jai Courtney, Hassie Harrison, Josh Heuston, Rob Carlton, Ella Newton, Liam Greinke
Intro:
... a very effective little horror yarn with great performances, rock-solid direction and a premise that doesn’t feel like you’ve seen it a thousand times before.
Humans are endlessly fascinated with sharks, almost like it’s hardwired into our DNA. See, while our species of overachieving apes has pretty much dominated dry land, we’re still relatively pissweak in the briny depths of the ocean. And who is the nastiest bugger below the waves? Undoubtedly sharks, those toothy grubs with an endless appetite for tangy flesh.
Shark movies have always been big business, but it’s a rare one these days that adds a fresh wrinkle to the mix. Enter Dangerous Animals, the latest flick from underrated Aussie director Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones), which manages to bring both a fresh take to the shopworn genre and a masterful performance from an unexpected source.
Dangerous Animals is the dark tale of loquacious, Aussie boat captain Tucker (Jai Courtney), a gigantic bear of a man who takes tourists on cage dives in shark infested waters. Friendly, urbane and oddly reassuring, Tucker ensures that his charges have a good time… right up until the point that he decides to feed them – alive and screaming – to the toothy denizens below. Tucker kidnaps fiercely independent American tourist Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), who proves to be more of a handful than his usual victims, and with lovelorn local hottie Moses (Josh Heuston) on her trail, the killer’s latest fishing expedition might just be his last.
Dangerous Animals plays out like a supercharged combination of Wolf Creek and Jaws. It works, in the most part, because Jai freaking Courtney absolutely knocks his villain turn out of the park, making Tucker the most engaging Aussie serial killer since Mick Taylor strapped on his Akubra. Hassie Harrison is also a capable and engaging lead and although her character isn’t exactly reinventing the final girl wheel, she’s extremely charismatic and you’re absolutely rooting for her to succeed against all odds. Props should also go to Ella Newtown, who imbues unfortunate Pommy backpacker Heather with a lot of pathos, and Josh Heuston who plays Moses as a bit wet but ultimately good-hearted.
The other big positive here is the direction from Sean Byrne, who we haven’t seen since 2015’s criminally underrated The Devil’s Candy. Byrne continues to prove to be one of Australia’s most deft genre voices and delivers the goods yet again, particularly in the film’s nail-biting third act.
There are flaws, of course. The script runs the gamut from tense to ludicrous a bit too often for its own good and one moment of very ill-advised CGI towards the end looked howlingly out of place. Still and all, this is a very effective little horror yarn with great performances, rock-solid direction and a premise that doesn’t feel like you’ve seen it a thousand times before. It’s not the second coming of Jaws or anything, but a very agreeable, crowd-pleasing time at the cinema. And you’re unlikely to ever look at Jai Courtney in the same way again.
