Evan Peters' Underrated 2010s Heist Thriller Is Now Streaming For Free

For some folks, the very concept of pulling off a heist — like in the movies — sounds alluring, but there's a stark difference between filmic reality and actual reality. In Bart Layton's "American Animals," two twenty-somethings get stoned while watching a bunch of Blockbuster-rented heist thrillers, particularly Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing," which only encourages them to further develop their plan for the art heist of the century. 

They even co-opt the color-coded aliases from Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," in one of many moments in this criminally underseen 2018 crime drama that makes you question whether these boys have really thought this through. What follows is one of the best heist movies you've never seen, but thankfully, you're now able to stream this gripping, stranger-than-fiction tale for free on Tubi.

Within a special room of the Transylvania University library in Lexington, Kentucky, lies a trove of rare books, including John J. Audubon's "Birds of America," an 19th century collection of paintings valued at $12 million. Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan), Warren Lipka (Evan Peters), Eric Borsuk (Jared Abrahamson) and Chas Allen (Blake Jenner) all possess contrasting personalities, yet are nevertheless compelled to launch a plan to steal the books. It would make a fascinating fictional narrative, but "American Animals" is not only a recreation of the bizarre true story, it's partially relayed to us by the perpetrators themselves.

British filmmaker Bart Layton transforms what the docudrama can look like with "American Animals," in which the real Spencer Reinhard, Warren Lipka, Eric Borsuk and Chas Allen recount their story alongside their screen counterparts acting it out. It's not unlike what Layton did with his critically acclaimed 2012 documentary thriller "The Imposter." That film chronicles the insane story of how sociopathic con man Frédéric Bourdin convinced a Texan family that he was Nicholas Barclay, a kid who mysteriously vanished when he was 13 years old. 

Layton was lauded for crafting an engrossing documentary that utilized re-enactments to accentuate the story's strange nature, but his sophomore feature behind the camera takes it a few steps further. "American Animals" is the result of a documentary account and its Hollywood adaptation essentially bleeding into one another. The four boys often inform how the film plays out, with one of the more interesting merges being Lipka speaking to "American Horror Story" star Evan Peters within the movie as to whether or not it was his idea that kicked this whole thing off. 

The most effective scene is a haunting image of Reinhard watching his fictional duplicate (Keoghan) drive by on his way to making the mistake that would upend his life. While large swaths of the story are pretty cut and dried, the foursome remember certain details differently, creating a symphony of unreliable narrators that makes it appear as if they're hacking the film in progress. But for all of the ways in which they influence "American Animals," Layton never quite lets them off the hook.

Early in "American Animals," an "Ocean's Eleven"-inspired fantasy envisions the crew waltzing into the secured room in suits and ties as they acquire the books without breaking a sweat, scored to Junkie XL's 2002 remix of "A Little Less Conversation." In the real heist that "American Animals" ultimately builds towards, however, the "movie" portion doesn't come to save these four privileged idiots from the bed they've decided to lie in. Layton spends the first half putting you in their simplistic mindset, while the second half deconstructs the excitement of being in your own heist movie.

It's upsetting to watch, not only because getting these books out isn't as easy as they believed it would be, but because of how they subdue librarian Betty Jean Gooch (Ann Dowd). There's a lingering uneasiness in the planning process for the human element at play. Evan Peters' Warren keeps pushing the conversation off, while Jared Abrahamson's Eric seeks to eliminate his role in her neutralization entirely. It only makes their inevitable confrontation that much more uncomfortable.

The four real-life participants of the 2004 "Transy Book Heist" talk about crossing that line. Layton does an excellent job of showing the many opportunities of escape that were afforded to them and how they carried on anyway. Their screw-ups and poor planning would be hilarious if it weren't so embarrassing. Layton may seek to understand the rationale behind these well-off kids doing something so reckless, yet never veers away from holding them publicly accountable. It's a real hidden gem of a heist movie that truly deserves to be recognized among the genre's best.