Dangerous Animals: Even the guts are sharks (***)

Offal is the most graphic and universal example that cooking has ever offered of how to turn necessity into a virtue. In times of crisis, or simply hunger, the decision is made to break something of a taboo, and everything that was once offal becomes food. Guts, snouts, brains, sex, blood, and other soft parts, into the stew. And suddenly, to the surprise of the polite crowd, a delicacy. It happens often. Dangerous Animals could be considered, to continue with the gastronomic menu, a true offal delicacy. The idea is quite simple: to convert the last remnants (many of them thoroughly chewed, digested, and even vomited) of the most happily bloody cinema into a dish as creative as it is enjoyable. We won't say nutritious (it's loaded with cholesterol), but it is very entertaining.

Australian Sean Byrne, who already tried a similar formula in Bloody Meeting (2009), simply mixes the most classic serial killer model with the no less redundant scheme of the abyssal creature that creates widows and widowers. Now that it's 50 years since Spielberg's Jaws, what better homage? Thus, the disturbing, shark-obsessed sailor, played as faithfully as he is disturbingly by Jai Courtney, is devoted to feeding his children. And so it is until he crosses paths with a sassy surfer (Hassie Harrison) who, as expected, is in no mood to feed anyone or be taught how to do it. What follows is an example of cinema dedicated to the titanic task of, in effect, making a virtue out of necessity. In other words, pure cascara delight.

The strategy of Dangerous Animals basically consists of emphasizing and strengthening where, as a rule, cinema of its rank, genre, and condition tends to overcook. It's not only about crafting compelling moments of bloody, oozing tension (which it also is), but also about drawing characters perverse and interesting enough to first unsettle us and then, if necessary, even obsess us. Both the heroine, oblivious to any hint of condescension (the opposite of the commonplace damsel in distress), and the villain, an epicurean admirer of the force of nature, are there to break the taboos that cuisine based on viscera and other waste has so diligently combated. Alongside them, both Shelley Farthing-Dawe's photography and the exuberant digital effects, as incredible as they are delirious, with the acrobatic sharks, end up creating a hypercaloric menu that is as inconsequential as it is joyful. And make no mistake, it's fattening.

The result is what it is: a clever and very crazy combination of hunger and desire to eat. Fine offal.

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Directed by : Sean Byrne. Starring : Hassie Harrison, Josh Heuston, Jai Courtney, Rob Carlton. Running time : 93 minutes. Nationality : Australian.