His name: infamous. His reputation: ruthless. But when James "Animal"Allen is locked up in a maximum security prison, he meets a revolutionary who changes his life. Now a reformed man, James is released only to find that his own son has assumed a life of crime and violence. Can a father haunted by his past redeem his family from the very streets he created, or will he be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice?
Animal is a 2005 direct-to-video film directed by David J. Burke and starring Ving Rhames, Terrence Howard, Chazz Palminteri, and Jim Brown. It was written by David C. Johnson. The film's profits were the subject of a lawsuit against the film's distributor, DEJ Productions. The case was still active into the year 2011. It was followed up by a 2007 sequel, Animal 2. The story of Willie Lynch is mentioned in the film, and passed on from father to son to half-brother. The film holds that the Lynch story is factual although it has been proved to be a modern forgery.
