Animal Kingdom -- NYT Critics' Pick

[lsanderson]

John Tsiavis/Sony Pictures Classics
Sullivan Stapleton, whose character deals cocaine, and Jacki Weaver, his mother, in “Animal Kingdom,” in what could be the Australian answer to “Goodfellas.”
A Matriarch in Melbourne and Her Band of Warped Partners in Crime
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: August 12, 2010

With a bleached-blond mane, a glittering blue-eyed stare and a ferocious smile, Smurf Cody (Jacki Weaver) is the mama lion to a criminal brood of armed robbers and drug dealers in the mostly terrific Australian gangster film “Animal Kingdom.” The opening images of the movie, the directorial and screenwriting debut of David Michôd, are statues and drawings of lions. Although the Codys live in bland-looking suburban Melbourne, it might as well be the jungle, for all they care about law and order. More