The Film: 4/5

Let’s play a quick game of “Remember the Aughts”. Hey kids, remember Franchise Pictures? No? Well that’s okay, you’re not alone there. You see, young’uns, back in the late 1990’s, an independent production company founded by producer, entrepreneur, and Tia Carrere’s ex-husband Elie Samaha, and actor (The Fury, Day of the Animals) turned director/producer Andrew Stevens was formed, and it was named Franchise Pictures. Most of their films were distributed through Warner Bros. Pictures, and though they occasionally scored a cult breakthrough (The Boondock Saints) or critical darling (Sean Penn’s haunting drama The Pledge, featuring Jack Nicholson’s last truly astounding performance), Franchise was ultimately sunk by a series of costly failures that bombed with audiences and critics. Three of them – Battlefield Earth, Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever, and Peter Hyams’ utterly ridiculous Ray Bradbury adaptation A Sound of Thunder – are often listed among the worst movies ever made.

Franchise aimed to be a new Fox or Columbia, but by rolling the dice far too many times on an expensive Sylvester Stallone vehicle that failed to even recoup its budget at the box office, the company ended up a poor man’s Cannon Films. To the credit of the paper house Samaha and Stevens built, they were willing to bankroll a few films that actually turned out quite good, such as David Mamet’s crafty crime drama Heist, the character-driven drama The Big Kahuna. One of the most overlooked gems in the Franchise library is Animal Factory, an adaptation of actor/crime novelist Edward Bunker’s semi-autobiographical prison directed and co-written by the acclaimed indie film icon and television star Steve Buscemi, who had previously co-starred with Bunker in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 directorial debut Reservoir Dogs.

Bunker, who passed away in July 2005, was one of the finest writers of 20^th century American crime fiction, and this was because he knew what he wrote about with dark intimacy and staggering detail. Having been a professional criminal for most of the early decades of his life, Bunker had been best known as the youngest inmate imprisoned in San Quentin State Prison when he was sent there in 1951 at the age of 17. He developed a passion of writing during his times behind bars and in 1975 he gave up his life of crime for good and began penning tense crime novels based on his experiences such as No Beast So Fierce (adapted for the screen by Ulu Grosbard in 1978 as Straight Time, starring Dustin Hoffman) and Dog Eat Dog. He also worked on the screenplay for the 1985 action masterpiece Runaway Train, and he often appeared as an actor in these projects. Even when his writing services weren’t required, you could usually find Bunker’s unmistakable face popping up in features like The Long Riders, The Running Man, Miracle Mile, Tango & Cash, and the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard starring Adam Sandler and Chris Rock.

Now that I’ve gotten that little bit of biographical background out of the way, time to discuss the movie Animal Factory. The hypocrisy of the penal system provides the thematic engine that powers what is a better-than-average entry in the jailhouse drama genre. Prisons are often regarded as places of rehabilitation for the most hardened career criminal, but in the case of young Ron Decker (Edward Furlong), a kid from a decent family who has been sent away for five years on the rather innocuous charge of drug possession, they can also easily force a harmless screw-up to transform into a hardened felon in order to survive the day-by-day savagery of life in the slammer. Since the prison’s administrative staff could seemingly care less, and since the guards are capable of being corrupted by the very men they’re paid and trained to keep in line, a defenseless kid like Ron can be a viable candidate to become a punk.

Making friends with Earl Copen (Willem Dafoe), a well-connected and respected con who has a lot of pull around the joint and his own little gang of loyalists, appears to be the best way for Ron to avoid becoming some fearsome lifer’s personal boy toy. Though the possibility always exists that Copen could be providing protection for Ron so he can take sexual advantage of him later, the older man and his youthful charge form a strong bond that is constantly tested by the battles that must be fought and deals that must be made in order to keep illegal drugs flowing through the prison and prevent the various racial factions formed out of the population from exploding into violent chaos.

Animal Factory was the second film directed by Steve Buscemi, following up his well-regarded 1996 debut Trees Lounge. Despite having worked mostly in television since (including episodes of Oz, The Sopranos, Nurse Jackie, and Porlandia), Buscemi always displayed a sure and steady hand as a feature director, his decades of experience in acting serving him well when putting together ensemble casts that could handily perform to the best of their abilities without question. With his head clean shaven and trademark wiry intensity on hand. Dafoe was a great choice to play the experienced convict Earl, a man who enjoys operating the prison as his own little fiefdom and chuckles at the idea he will be released because, as quoted from Milton’s Paradise Lost by Earl towards the end of the film, “better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven”. Together with Furlong, an actor whose litany of personal issues and child actor stigma prevented him from becoming the great actor that performances in films such as this and American History X would indicate exist within a toughened shell of bad life decisions, Dafoe makes the bond between Earl and Ron believable and the emotional core of Animal Factory.

Possibly drawing upon his own experiences with substance abuse and run-ins with the law, Furlong portrays the character of Ron Decker with a guarded humanity that helps get his performance to the finish line without the benefit of much room for character development. At first, it’s hard to take Tom Arnold seriously as a rapist creep who sets his depraved sights on Ron, but he proves to be scarily good in his limited screen. Similarly, Mickey Rourke has a nice supporting role as Ron’s first cellmate, a transvestite who treats the younger man with the blunt affection of a concerned parent, and the members of Earl’s prison clique are performed well by Danny Trejo (Machete), Buscemi’s longtime friend and acting partner Mark Boone Junior (Sons of Anarchy), Chris Bauer (The Wire, True Blood), and actor/musician Jake La Botz (Rambo).

Seymore Cassel (Rushmore) also does well with a few scenes as a prison guard friendly with Earl, and actors like J.C. Quinn (The Abyss), Mark Webber (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), Vincent Laresca (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), and indie horror filmmaker Larry Fessenden fill out the smaller roles of fellow inmates. Buscemi himself appears briefly as a prison official, as does Bunker playing another convict. The only actor in the cast who doesn’t really fit is the late John Heard (Cutter’s Way), who is good in his brief screen time as Ron’s dedicated father, but his Oscar-ready dramatic overplaying sticks out like a sore thumb among the more naturalistic performers.

Buscemi and editor Kate Williams (who cut both Trees Lounge and 2004’s Interview for the director) established a relaxed pacing in the film that allows for the authenticity of prison life and the hierarchy among the inmates to carefully develop alongside the relationship between Earl and Ron, occasionally broken up by quick bouts of violence that never overwhelm the narrative. The action is set to the discordant musical stylings of alt-jazz legend John Lurie (Down by Law), and transgender musician Antony Hegarty (now known as Anohni) of Antony and the Johnsons puts in a short appearance as a prisoner performing a haunting version of his band’s “Rapture”.

If there is a flaw in Animal Factory, it’s that so much of the 94-minute running time is devoted to the Earl/Ron dynamic that any actual plot developments, such as a third act escape plan that is executed without a shred of tension or surprise, feel rushed and anticlimactic. A tighter, more focused script would have made Animal Factory a crime classic, but the movie Buscemi is so good the rest of the time that it’s pointless to complain about what could have been when one considers what we got to begin with.

Audio/Video: 4/5

Animal Factory was shot on 35mm with Panavision cameras by cinematographer Phil Parmet (The Devil’s Rejects). The look of the film he worked out with director Buscemi is flat and nearly drained of color, as to appropriately visualize the depressing conditions of the prison, the blues of the convicts’ shirts and the green grass in the yard have a much-needed vibrancy and pop to them that stand out in Arrow Video’s 1080p high-definition digital transfer. Since this Region A Blu-ray edition’s packaging and collector’s booklet feature no mention of a new scan, it’s likely this was simply an upgrading of a preexisting home video master. Since the movie was made almost twenty years ago, it looks as good as you would expect for a film of this age, and the lack of style in the cinematography didn’t necessitate additional color correction or digital noise reduction. Presented in its original 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio, the HD transfer is sharp but not excessively so, free of damage, and boasting a fine layer of grain to better preserve the authentic filmic texture.

An earlier DVD release featured Dolby Digital soundtrack 5.1 and 2.0 options, but Arrow has only included an uncompressed English 2.0 stereo track that does an excellent of keeping the voluminous dialogue crisp and audible and Lurie’s score at a proper volume level to avoid distortion or loss of information. English SDH subtitles have also been provided.

Extras: 3/5

The audio commentary track with author/co-screenwriter/co-writer Bunker and co-star Trejo from the original DVD release has been ported over for this Blu-ray. Though it contains more than its share of dead air, when the two participants are engaged, they tend to share many priceless insights into the true stories behind the novel, memories of their time served at San Quentin, and the making of the film adaptation. A fine track, but it would have been way better had Buscemi joined the party to keep the conversation animated. Film writer Barry Forshaw discusses Bunker’s fascinating life and literary and film careers in the new featurette “Eddie Bunker: Life of Crime” (21 minutes). Lastly, we have the original theatrical trailer (1 minute), which in addition to being frustratingly short also makes the film look like an intense, pulse-racing thriller.

Arrow has also included reversible cover art (stick with the new design by Jacob Phillips because the reverse image is one of those generic Photoshop hack jobs we film geeks love to mock) and a collector’s booklet featuring a new essay about Animal Factory written by the esteemed film critic Glenn Kenny.

Overall: 3.5/5

Animal Factory wasn’t one of the best films ever made about prison life, but it works as an honest, unflinching effort about the harsh realities of incarceration with solid performances elicited under the direction of Steve Buscemi. Lovers of character-driven independent cinema might find this Blu-ray release from Arrow Video worthy of a blind buy.