★ (1 out of 4)
Ben Affleck is more than capable of making a tight, twisty thriller. He did it with “The Town,” back in 2010, only two years before the Academy denied him the Oscar nomination he richly deserved for directing the Best Picture winner “Argo.”
Affleck really drops the ball with a thud in “Animals,” a kidnap drama that Netflix is debuting in theaters on the same day (today, 10/9) that it starts streaming on the service. Affleck is in good company since Spike Lee went belly up last year with “Highest 2 Lowest,” a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s masterful 1963 abduction suspenseful “High and Low.”