Animal

This movie had a good message but it was lost in a story where the characters continued to blame their problems on others. It appeared that the "white man" was accused of causing the characters life of crime. Every time the characters were seen selling drugs, it was to a white man with short hair, a long sleeve shirt with a tie. No street level dealer would sell to such a person. He would more likely be shot.

Jim Brown's character says he was convicted of murder as if he was framed but admits to killing people at home. And Animal is only sent to prison because the police framed him.

Such denial won't solve the problem.

This is the story of a man nick named Animal. Baddest of the bad, Animal was the head of a crew in ghetto neighborhood he lived in. One day he's arrested and sent to jail leaving behind a wife and child. While in jail for years he continues his violent ways, at the same time his son takes after his old man and becomes known as "Little Animal". With the help of a fellow prisoner Animal changes his way and is eventually paroled. Back at home he now must struggle with carving a out a new life while trying to figure out out how to save his son from ending up like him, or worse.

I stumbled upon this film by accident and I'm glad I did. Animal is a brutal, heartfelt look at life in the "hood", how nothing ever changes, and what it takes to change things. Its a well told story that has some of the best performances of the year in any film. Every one in this movie is excellent from Ving Rhames on down. The acting alone is reason enough to see this film, however there is a very real story being told. It will move you and break your heart.

Forgive me I finished the film not long ago and I still feel the effects of this wonderful movie.Its left me with a loss of words. I think all I can really say is see this film and be moved too.

... rushed execution and obviously not a lot of production value(s). You could live with the latter, but the performances aren't the best either. Of course it's nice to see Ving Rhames in a lead role, but it'd be even better, if the script got sharpened too, so it would match his performance skills too.

The title of the movie gives you the main character and you also know, from the (V) behind the movies name here at IMDb, that it is directly produced for Video/DVD use. Terence Malick does elevate the movie too, but not as much as you'd think he would! The story (if you really want to know it before you watch it, read it here somewhere on the IMDb page) has been done before, so you might be used to see better movies, than this one on this particular topic ...

Ving Rhames plays "animal" the toughest guy on the street. Naturally he ends up in prison where he meets an old con, Berwell, played by football great Jim Brown. Berwell tries to make him understand that all the hate in society is part of a conspiracy led by the rich and powerful to keep the poor and middle class fighting among themselves. Divide and conquer. THEY want us to hate blacks and whites and hispanics. And hate homeless and homosexuals and convicts. And hate muslims and jews and catholics. If we're busy doing that, then we won't hate the rich and powerful - the ones we should hate.

Anyway, he explains this to animal and i'll let you watch the movie to see how much impact it has. I really liked this show but then, i like most prison movies.

This movie touched on many areas of hood mentality that Black men (young and older) go through when trying to desperately get money the wrong way. Also,the Native American actor made me think about the effects of "assimilation" and thrown into a a ghetto designed by racism.