Spencer Reinhard never expected a college library tour to change his life. The son of an engineer and a homemaker in Lexington, Kentucky, he was a talented art student when he was shown around the library at Transylvania University – idolizing masters such as Monet and van Gogh, tortured artists with lives full of tragedy and passion.

He didn’t have that in his comfortable, happy, upper-middle-class life in suburban Kentucky. But when he entered the special collections room of the university library, he saw a chance to change all that. Books and manuscripts worth millions were on display, guarded only by an aging librarian.

He saw an opportunity to make his life extraordinary.

He saw an opportunity for a heist.

What followed, improbably, was a bumbling and haphazard caper – a criminal attempt to live a life less ordinary that landed Reinhard and three of his friends in jail. Their 2004 plan is the subject of newly released movie American Animals, which is part re-enactment, part interviews with the real people involved.

The heist gave the four 20-year-olds the taste of adventure and movie plot excitement that they so craved – but it came at a price.

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New film American Animals, directed by Bart Layton, tells the story of how four Kentucky college students attempted to steal $12million in rare books and manuscripts from the special collections room of the library at Transylvania University - even disguising themselves as old men at one point (pictured, in a still from the movie)

The students who planned the heist and were later sentenced to seven years in prison were, from left to right, Eric Borsuk, Spencer Reinhard, Charles 'Chas' Allen IIand Warren Lipka

From left to right: Borsuk, Reinhard, Allen and Lipka have all been released from prison, where they had corresponded with director Layton; he tells DailyMail.com that he was impressed by their honesty behind their motivations, and their interviews are included in the film

‘It was one of those true stories that just didn’t need a whole lot of exaggeration or fictionalization or embellishment,’ says American Animals director Bart Layton, who first began corresponding with the four young men while they were in prison. ‘It was sort of unbelievable on so many levels – and I guess a lot of it, to me, these men were almost lost in a movie fantasy that just went way too far.’

He adds: ‘The idea that they were sort of drawn in by that, and then getting more and more detached from reality, to me presents a really amazing opportunity to tell a new kind of true story that we haven’t quite seen before.’

It all began with that library tour, which Spencer mentioned to his friend Warren – an excitable athlete considered to be a bad influence by Spencer’s parents, the type of teen who sported a tattoo of a Tyrannosaurus rex trying to turn on a ceiling fan on his right arm. Spencer explained that $12million in rare books were there for the taking, barely guarded in the sleepy building on Transylvania’s manicured campus.

Among the items in the library collection were a first edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of natural Selection; drawings and sketches by naturalist John James Audobon; and an intricate, hand-painted manuscript written in 1425 in Winchester, England.

The accessibility and huge pricetag of the items – right on their doorstep – led the boys to concoct a romantic notion of starring in their own real-life caper that would inject their youth with the excitement Spencer so craved.

‘Growing up, I had a desire for some kind of life-altering experience,’ real-life Spencer, now 33, says in the film, referring to the trials and tribulations of tortured historical artists. ‘I felt like they understood something more about life that I wasn’t getting to experience. Art has to be about more than just, “My life is great and I’m really good at drawing.”’

Warren, too, seized upon the idea of a heist, beginning research and reconnaissance on the library – and the boys studied robberies by watching all the heist movies they could get their hands on.

Newly released film American Animals is a dramatization and reenactment of the heist starring actors Barry Keoghan (Reinhard), Evan Peters (Lipka), Jared Abrahamson (Eric) and Blake Jenner (Allen) - interspersed with interviews with the real people involved

They monitored staff schedules, building plans and security procedures, realizing the locked rare books room was guarded by motion sensors. Meanwhile, Warren started looking into how they could sell the books once they were stolen, tracking down a shady email address from a contact for a ‘fence.’ The ended up driving 12 hours across the country to New York City for a seconds-long meeting with a contact in Central Park who passed on another email address.

That email address connected them to possible buyers in Amsterdam, where Warren allegedly traveled to discuss a sale – posing as the nephew of the real seller. He reported that these underworld characters told him that only items valued by a respected auction house would even be considered for purchase. And all of this occurred before the boys even had the books in their own possession.

As planning progressed, however, Warren and Spencer realized they couldn’t successfully execute the caper on their own. They brought in Warren’s friend, Eric Borsuk – an accounting major who dreamed of joining the FBI upon graduation. He pointed out that pulling off the heist at night would be too difficult; it would be easier to steal the books during the day, when people were coming in and out of the building all the time.

The boys decided that the best way to get in the room would be to make a viewing appointment and accompany the librarian. They’d also need a getaway driver, someone with access to a fast car – so they settled on Charles ‘Chas’ Allen II, another student who had his own income as a budding entrepreneur. Initially he told them they were crazy.

‘Once I realized they were serious about the plan, I thought they were smoking too much [marijuana] and I thought they were likely to get themselves in a lot of trouble and get caught,’ he says in the film.

Eventually, however, he was coaxed into joining them.

The only big hurdle to pulling off a seamless crime, they figured, was the librarian presiding over the collection – Betty Jean Gooch. She would have to be in the room at the start of the heist, having opened the locked section – and none of the boys wanted to harm her. Eventually it was Warren who volunteered, reluctantly, to incapacitate her; he bought a stun gun and they packed duct tape and zip ties. Warren rationalized that he’d assure the librarian they weren’t there for her and only wanted the books; after the heist, he said, they’d mail her some money as an apology.

In a scene from American Animals, actor Peters, playing Warren Lipka, stands in front of a drawing board for the crime; in the film, as in real life, Lipka assigns code names to the four co-conspirators inspired by the Quentin Tarantino cult heist film Reservoir Dogs

Eric Borsuk, played in the film by Jared Abrahamson (pictured), was studying accounting because he wanted to join the FBI - before the caper derailed his plans

He’d be solely responsible for taking care of the librarian, he insisted. The others would not be involved whatsoever.

The boys made an appointment to view the books at the Transylvania library for December 16, 2004, the second to last day of the semester and a day on which three of them were scheduled to take exams – a surefire alibi, Warren reasoned, because who would suspect students who were in finals on the day of the crime? As further assurance, the four of them decided – laughably – to wear disguises on the day. They dressed up as old men, complete with bushy fake eyebrows and beards.

Each of the young conspirators had an assigned role and - in another nod to their youthful, mistaken belief that real life can be just like the movies – Warren gave them code names according to color such as Mr. Pink (Chas, who was not pleased), just like in Tarantino’s cult heist classic Reservoir Dogs. Eric (Mr Black) and Warren (Mr Yellow) would go into the library. Spencer (Mr Green) would be the lookout. Chas (Mr Pink) would be waiting outside with the engine running and the doors open.

The plan went awry almost from the start. After entering the library, Warren realized that there wasn’t just one librarian at the rare books collection that day; instead there were several, and it looked like they were having a meeting. The four decided to abort – a huge relief for some of them. They fled in their costumes.

‘To get out of that situation, without having done anything wrong, was an incredible feeling,’ Spencer, now out of jail and working as an artist in Lexington, says in the film. ‘The plan was off, there was no heist … it was glorious. The sun was shining, and it was like a new beginning.’

Warren, however, had other plans. He made an appointment for the following day under the same false name, and the foursome set out yet again, this time without their old men disguises. He and Eric went into the library, with Warren first introducing himself to Ms Gooch and later calling up Eric (before he’d incapacitated her.) Warren used a stun gun, and the two of them tied her up – but they were in a panic and the books were large and heavy.

Then they couldn’t find their planned exit and made a run for it through the library, dropping most of their loot along the way. After Chas picked them up, he also panicked and forced them out in the middle of an unfamiliar neighborhood. It had all gone sideways, and they walked away with almost nothing – but they did make off with a few small items, including the Darwin book. And they weren’t giving up.

The four, nerves frayed, drove to New York for an appointment at Christie’s. The lead appraiser wasn’t there, so they left Spencer’s cell phone number. It wasn’t until later that they realized they’d used the same email address to book the Christie’s appointment and the original library viewing at Transylvania. That connection would prove their undoing.

Within months, they were tracked down and arrested – to the absolute horror and astonishment of their family and friends.

‘We were in shock,’ Spencer’s parents say in the film. ‘We did not expect that from our son, ever. It was like we woke up in a nightmare.’

The boys pleaded guilty to six federal charges including theft of cultural artifacts from a public museum and interstate transportation of stolen property; they were each sentenced to seven years in federal prison. The stolen items were returned to Transylvania undamaged and are still under the care of Ms Gooch, who also agreed to be interviewed for the film.

‘The pain that I caused both to my family and to BJ (Betty Jean) were never worth the adventure that we felt at the time or the change in our life that we were craving,’ Spencer says in the movie.

Warren (played by Evan Peters in the film) is now living in Philadelphia; he re-enrolled in college and is pursuing filmmaking. Eric (played by Jared Abrahamson) has completed a memoir of the caper from which the film takes its name: American Animals. Chas (played by Blake Jenner) is living in California and is now, among other things, a motivational speaker. And Spencer (played by Barry Keoghan) still lives in Lexington and works as an artist – specializing in birds.

Director Layton, who first met the foursome the day after they were released from prison following a long correspondence, says their motivations behind the crime added a deeper level to the story.

‘It was the things that they wrote in these letters from prison which, for me, turned it from a great stranger-than-fiction true story to something that felt quite kind of prescient, in a way,’ he tells DailyMail.com. ‘They talked a lot about their motivations, and not all of them were motivated by what you might imagine – which is obviously getting millions of dollars and riding off into the sunset.’

The library at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, housing the special collections room where the rare books and manuscripts - such as works by Charles Darwin and naturalist John James Audubon - are held

Following the theft, the four 20-year-olds drove 12 hours to New York City, where they attempted to have the works valued by the auction house - a move that would eventually help lead to their apprehension

Librarian Betty Jean Gooch, left, who was attacked by the robbers, continues to look after the rare books at the Transylvania library; Director Bart Layton, right, interviewed her for his film, as well as all four young men who perpetrated the crime and some of their parents. He tells DailyMail.com that he found the four 'unusual' and 'incredibly compelling' and lauded their 'honesty about the naive and idiotic nature of what they’d done – but there was something kind of relatable about it ... that's why I decided that if I was going to make a film about it, they would have to be included in some way'

Spencer, Layton says, ‘doesn’t really have a problem but needs one in order to have an identity to find his voice.

‘Warren also talked about this desire to be interesting and need to make your mark on the world’ – which Layton says now looms even larger in young people’s lives, what with the advent of social media. And he hopes the story resonates with modern audiences for that very reason.

‘I found them quite unusual; I found them incredibly compelling, their honesty about the naïve and idiotic nature of what they’d done – but there was something kind of relatable about it,’ he tells DailyMail.com. ‘There was something honest that really spoke to that time of adolescence, that transition into adulthood, realizing that you’re probably not going to be special and interesting and important but wondering how to kind of leave a mark on the world and all of those kinds of things.

‘They were very honest, and that’s why I decided that if I was going to make a film about it, they would have to be included in some way.’

He adds: ‘I hope it’s more than just a fascinating tale. For me, as a filmmaker, that’s not enough – just to have a great story … Really, it’s a heist movie, but it’s also about a rather lost group of young men who are searching for an identity.

‘And I think one of the things that I wanted to talk about, or wanted to at least make people think about, is this pressure. It is a very privileged thing to be able to worry about whether you’re going to be important or – after your basic needs are being met – you’re then faced with these existential questions.

‘I think now we live in a culture where there is a huge amount of pressure … we walk around with these devices which give us a metric for how interesting we are: how many people are following us on Instagram or twitter or facebook or whatever it is.

‘You broadcast your stuff out into the world and then you wait for people to like it or react to it, and then you judge your importance or your value in relation to other people based on how many people are responding to you or liking you or following you or whatever … Those are the things and ideas that I wanted to leave you thinking about.’