Before you decide to become a filmmaker, best to run your ideas by someone already working in the industry - and someone who has preferably experienced the local industry’s up and down’s and high and lows.

In addition to suggesting you seek out another vocation, this person will likely tell you “It’s a jungle out there”.

And they’re right. It is. There’s no harder industry to make it in than the one where the tools of trade are a Nikon, clapper board and filofax of letters of intent. You can read as much William Goldman, and shoot as many short films in your backyard as you like, it ain’t gonna get your story on screen any quicker.  But are things changing?

They’ll still be telling you “it’s a jungle out there” after the release of writer/director David Michod’s amazing new Aussie crime thriller, only its possible the filmmaker’s referring to the ferocious might of zoological escapee Animal Kingdom.

When teenage Cody’s (James Frecheville) mother dies, he’s shipped off to live with the grandmother he hardly knew (Jacki Weaver) and his no-good unit of uncles (Joel Edgerton, Luke Ford,  Ben Mendelsohn, Sullivan Stapleton). Seems everyone, including Grandma Janine, is a crook - with the unpredictable Pope (Mendelsohn) the biggest threat to Cody and a normal existence.

Thanks to a kindly cop (Guy Pearce), Cody is ultimately offered an out - but his freedom will come at a cost.

Offering not only new hope to smart and savvy filmmakers who’ve gotten to know the words “insufficient funds” quite well since leaving film school, but a sign that the best of what Australia has to offer in terms of film and TV might still be coming, the excellently-performed superbly-written thriller is a refreshingly encouraging yarn, a species of which many thought to be extinct. And If most of our local industry’s films (like those ridiculous quirky comedies we’ve become known for) are toothless tigers left best behind a wire fence, than journalist cum filmmaker Michod’s beastly thriller is a sharp, menacing, unforgettable cougar - offering much bite.

Look, it’d be easy to write Animal Kingdom off as merely ‘Underbelly The movie’, but while thematically and geographically (the first season of the hit TV series was, like Animal Kingdom, set in crime-infused Melbourne) they may feed from the same troth, both are of a different breed.  Underbelly, I guess you’d say, is much flashier than Animal Kingdom - sort of a Tony Scott-esque take on Victorian crime. Animal Kingdom, on the other hand, is a film which doesn’t so much care for using a wide colour palette, nor fast and nippy editing, as it does of making sure it’s performances, story, and pacing shine the brightest above all else. But also Underbelly, and a lot of other Australian gangster features, are interested in telling as many people’s stories as it can - and as quickly as it can. Michod’s script fixes on the members of the one family - a small family - and is intent on giving us as much insight into them in possibly, without diverting its attention to a side-character or characters. Animal Kingdom is - despite, ironically, its much, much shorter duration - a much more encompassing and engrossing experience than Underbelly.

If Michod’s film resembles anything - and frankly, it really doesn’t - its likely Lantana, and only because it’s an ensemble drama about a group of forlorn characters who are all seemingly hanging on by a thread. Some might also say its a little bit Chopper - but only because of some of its few lighter, more amusing instances of depicting crime.

Though it’s Michod’s compelling script that’s undoubtedly the star here, the cast he’s rounded up really bring it to life - Edgerton (in what some may see as a cameo - albeit a pivotal one), Guy Pearce, Luke Ford and Ben Mendeslohn are AFI-worthy. The standout of the film though, and likely to most people’s surprise (it’s been a long time between drinks, after all!), is veteran Jacki Weaver - who gives an unforgettably brilliant, and darkly humorous turn as the family matriarch. If this were an American film, Weaver would definitely be nominated for an Oscar for her courageous turn.

If Animal Kingdom were one of those pairs of shoes at the start of Footloose it’d be the most memorable pair, the one that dances to its own beat, and the one that doesn’t put a foot wrong.

Don’t miss the best film of 2010.