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If Books Could Kill

Indie caper comedy "American Animals" opens with a splash of text declaring "This is not based on a true story." It takes a minute to sink in, to ponder if it's a play on the many films of late that do breathlessly claim to be based on a true story. Just as you've had that second or two to process, a few of the words drop out and you're left staring at a new sentence: "This is a true story."

The lines are a perfect setup for the film to follow, a compulsively watchable mashup of a crime story about a brazen attempt steal Audubon's "Birds of America," the most valuable book in the world, from the college library that houses it. In a unique twist, the story is intercut with first-person commentary from the quartet of then-college students who actually perpetrated the crime. This is the "true story" alluded to in the opening titles - but how true is it? Do the perpetrators' observations add a dose of realism or just muddy the waters? Are the thieves speaking honestly to set the record straight, or simply underscoring the fact in some cases all truth is relative?

Amiable student Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan, "The Killing of a Sacred Deer") discovers the priceless Audubon tome during a library tour and begins to speculate about stealing it, dreaming of the revenue it would fetch on the black market. It's a scheme that might have remained unrealized, but straight-arrow Spencer mentions it to his unwieldy pal Warren Lipka (Evan Peters, "American Horror Story"). Warren's just the sort to throw gasoline on the sputtering grassfire of a potentially disastrous idea, and suddenly the two would-be thieves are off to the races: they're actually going to do this. They build out the team by recruiting Chas Allen (Blake Jenner, "The Edge of Seventeen"), a well-resourced jock, and budding accountant Eric Borsuk (Jared Abrahamson, "Sweet Virginia"), a strategic thinker who shores up their plan by shooting holes in some of their neophyte assumptions culled from watching way too many heist films.

There is an air of Hollywood cool to the quartet's preparations, from Spencer visiting the library to draw his own detailed version of the layout when a copy of the actual blueprints proves elusive, to Warren jetting off overseas to broker the sale of the soon to be stolen items, to the painstaking aging makeup and retiree costumes donned in an attempt to disguise themselves on the big day. But "American Animals" uses its narrative breaks to add a cold splash of reality to the proceedings: what we hear from the conspirators sometimes directly contrasts what we've just seen onscreen, and, a la Keyser Soze, there's one turnaround realization in the closing moments that potentially recasts the entire film. That and the dueling recollections make us wonder how much of this story we can trust, and ponder in turn if we can really rely on anyone's personal narrative.

The strong casting of the four leads is reinforced by seeing them intercut with their real-world counterparts. Mr. Peters is particularly adept at replicating Lipka's puckish, anarchic energy, and Mr. Abrahamson stands out for bravely evincing the panicked self-loathing that's to be expected under circumstances where plans go awry and one faces the immediate impact of a series of bad decisions.

"American Animals" is a refreshingly clever take on a stranger-than-fiction story; at turns funny and horrible, it's a thought-provoking work that will appeal to anyone who enjoys watching a criminal escapade play out. It's also a great reminder that the often unnavigable gap between fiction and reality extends to Hollywood itself, and things rarely turn out in real life the way they do on the big screen.