Dangerous Animals: Unleash The Jai Courtney!

Dangerous Animals is the type of film that, on paper, has the makings of a great genre film. It features a charismatic villain, a restless lead, and enough secondary characters lying around that the potential for carnage is through the roof. After its promising introduction, the film, however, becomes a case of diminishing returns, offering audiences the most generic captor vs. captive tension, but this time with sharks. Frustrating at its core, Jai Courtney’s best performance to date, continuing to leans on his previous success playing crass, charismatic, and wild characters in his native Australian tongue. He has seemed to find his groove playing characters some audiences have to known to refer to as Nicolas Cage like, and following his work here, hopefully he will get the due he deserves with what is easily one of the more entertaining performances of the year.

The story follows Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), an American overseas in Australia seeking to pursue her passion for surfing and the luxury of anonymity in a place such as the beach. However, her anonymity would soon fade after being abducted by a man named Tucker (Courtney) and left stranded out at sea. Instead of waiting for her death on the grandest stage, Zephyr fights to escape the boat to salvation though as the tension rises, so do the stakes, as outside forces begin to close in. In the end, where the film truly succeeds is in its aforementioned villainous performance by Courtney, who makes Tucker one of the more interesting villains in recent memory. Its best moments come in its exploration of Tucker as he descends into true madness, letting him absolutely consume the screen while surrendering someone to a pit of sharks.

That being said, as good as Courtney may be, he at times feels out of place as Dangerous Animals moves towards more of a captivity thriller than a shark slasher, making the promised shark mayhem is in short supply. The film’s identity is further entrenched in films such as The Black Phone, The Shallows, or even Shark Night, therefore, those looking for a gory shark feature will be disappointed. Instead, it zeroes in on the cat-and-mouse dynamic between Zephyr and Tucker and admittedly, it spawns the film’s strongest moments as Courtney’s charismatic maniac, and the hints at what’s under the surface, clashes well with Zephyr, the reserved outcast.

Clocking in at only 94-minutes, director Sean Byrne’s latest pads most of that out through screaming at a door and intermittent scenes of Jai Courtney going a little crazy. That being said, the film is not too creative, nor does it test the limits of being anything more than a captivity thriller. In lock step with many of those films, the film delivers some disappointing CGI and underwhelming shark action that will have many wishing for a more streamlined slasher offering more in the way of carnage. On the surface, Dangerous Animals looks great with some impressive cinematography of the ocean and surfer culture. However, its impressive shots are tragically undercut by disappointing CGI that momentarily takes away from that cinematography and moment to moment image making.

At the end of the day, in spite of its flaws, Dangerous Animals is worth a watch, if only for Courtney’s standout performance but audiences are best to temper their expectations going in to this one.

*still courtesy of Elevation Pictures*

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Brad Simon

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