How many times have you walked out of a movie and exclaimed, “That was great, but what it really needs is to be a television show!” Your answer, hopefully, is never. This is no shade on the home-viewing medium, but merely an acknowledgment that what you loved about said movie is unlikely to be replicable as a TV series. There are exceptions. Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau killed it as Felix and Oscar in Gene Saks’ film of “The Odd Couple,” but Tony Randall and Jack Klugman quickly made those roles their own on the hit ABC sitcom. Peter Berg crafted a big-screen American classic out of Buzz Bissinger’s “Friday Night Lights,” but the five-season series proved to be a deeper, more resonant experience. And who knew the boys club counterculture comedy of Robert Altman’s “M*A*S*H” could lay the groundwork for a long-running sitcom that was far more humanistic than its source material?
It’s been 15 years since I saw David Michôd’s “Animal Kingdom,” and I can tell you for certain that I did not exit the theater thinking someone could spin six seasons’ worth of television out of that bleak crime drama. While Michôd’s screenplay was tight as a garotte, I just couldn’t imagine anyone outdoing the performances of Ben Mendelsohn, Guy Pearce, Joel Edgerton, and the Academy Award-nominated Jacki Weaver.
Somehow, TNT and television developer Jonathan Lisco hit upon the idea to transplant Michôd’s crime family to the San Diego, California, suburb of Oceanside, and it caught on with the kinds of people who watch TNT shows. And now, three years after “Animal Kingdom” finished its six-season run on TNT, it’s getting some well-deserved love on Netflix.
The Animal Kingdom awaits you in the wilds of Netflix
According to FlixPatrol, the TNT iteration of “Animal Kingdom” is currently the sixth most popular show on Netflix. The series about a crime family that adds aimless 17-year-old Joshua “J” Cody (Finn Cole) into the fold was insanely well cast. The ever underrated Shawn Hatosy worked a compelling variation on Mendelsohn’s Pope, while Scott Speedman turned in career-best work as the adopted Baz.
But as with the film, the character of Smurf, the no-nonsense mother bear of the operation, was the engine of the narrative, and while you couldn’t outdo Weaver, you could cast Ellen Barkin. The electric movie star who melted projectors in 1987 opposite Dennis Quaid in “The Big Easy” was incandescently nasty as Janine “Smurf” Cody. Barkin’s the reason to watch the show, and the element that will keep you watching all the way to the season 6 finale.
“Animal Kingdom” ain’t “The Sopranos,” but if you dig shows about families given to malfeasance, you need to hit up Netflix and find your new streaming addiction.