Born Killers (2005)

Thanks for the memories!

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

How sad is this?

Blistering performances.

Born Killers has got to be one of the lamest and boring movies I have ever suffered through. The actors who played the 2 brothers are not star material to begin with. They are supposed to be stone cold Killers and they come off as soft wannabe tough guys. The kind you have a strong urge to slap for just looking your way. This movie was a dismal failure. Who cast these people ? Was it out of pity ? Lack of a budget ? A casting director who is incompetent ? The actors are dull. The plot is lame. The story is incredibly boring. This has got to be a planned tax write off or something. It would take a complete idiot to read the script and not see it for exactly what it is, as lame as lame can get. It's like someone thought hmmmmm let me find the worst script out there and pick the wimpiest no name cast I can find and see what happens. Well , as I am sure you suspected, nothing happened for a nothing movie ! This movie deserves a minus 10 rating. Born Wimps would be a more appropriate title. LOL

I never would have thought that I could be bored watching a movie about a pair of serial killers. Born Killers changed all that, as it is easily the worst serial killer film I've ever seen. Surprisingly enough, this film starts out pretty good and slowly descends into being unwatchable. John & Michael were left to learn about life from their father, a complete psychopath, so it's no surprise, that they turned out to be killers as well. John (Jake Muxworthy) is the quiet, good looking, methodical one, while his brother Michael (Gabriel Mann), is reckless, leaving John to clean up his mess. After we get the back story on the brothers, and see them in action, they go their separate ways, and the story focuses on John. Jake Muxworthy plays the quiet killer, who eventually meets up with a girl. He falls in love and tries to put his killer urges behind him to live the normal life. Muxworthy was the only reason this film got a rating at all. The film lacked the action I was hoping for and just turned into one conversation after another, but Muxworthy was as advertised, as this good looking, methodical killer, who not only plans things down to the last detail, but who also narrates the story. Born Killers wasn't bad in a way where the movie didn't make sense, the problem was how boring and slow moving it was. After the initial action, nothing really happens except for a lot of people doing a lot of talking, and if that's all I wanted to see, I'd just hang out at the mall.

I'm not much of a gore fan and once upon a midnight dreary I must have clicked this into my Blockbuster queue and it showed up in the mail. I didn't expect much. The best surprises are totally unexpected. This is most definitely NOT a cheap slasher movie, packaging aside.While the movie lacks the pizazz of Natural Born Killers, it is a very impressive and well acted movie that takes us on a horrifying trip that plumbs the depths of psychopathology. The very banality of the murderous lifestyles juxtaposed with the ordinary and almost attractive personalities (Gertie especially) of the characters is deeply disconcerting. You might find yourself asking if you might have tipped a few beers at a bar with any one of these and not realized how close you came to the personification of the deepest depths of evil. These are not the glamour figures of Bonnie and Clyde, nor the Robin Hood stereotypes, or the John Wayne Gacey perverts but a whole different breed of animal. Going into the more detail could ruin the plot. I'd recommend giving it a shot in first person.I also wonder who p.o'ed who in the marketing of this film. It's packaged as a cheap slasher movie which it definitely is not, and Blockbuster distributes it as "Born Killers" with no hint of an alternate title. But the IMDb doesn't even list that title (at the time this is written, and believe me I looked carefully). Try Googling it and you will find it hard to even locate a decent website for the film. Ironically I found the film by clicking on an advert on this site which took me to the movie at Amazon listing Piggy Banks as the alternative title. It's almost as if they don't want anybody to find out the secret.

This isn't a movie likely to suit all tastes, and if you're looking for a gore-soaked slasher movie or a by-the-numbers serial-killer drama you'll be disappointed. The crimes being committed are not brilliant or spectacular, and most of the violence--disturbing as it tends to be--is implied rather than shown. This leaves a lot of room for character, and these characters, detestable though some of them may be, are what make this movie stand out from the formulaic crowd. Jake Muxworthy's lead performance as John is overall very solid, considering he's saddled with the daunting task of imbuing a coldly opportunistic killer with enough human complexity to make his story one we can actually care about. The superb Gabriel Mann is at the height of his powers here as the fun-loving gleefully murderous older brother Michael, making John actually seem stable and reasonable by comparison. Tom Sizemore as their psychopath father is chillingly perfect in that role, as convincing a portrayal as he's ever pulled off. And Lauren German as Gertie is nothing less than a revelation; with her appearance the story spins off into a new and unexpected--and quite risky--direction, and the whole thing could have very easily slid right off the rails but for the strength and seamless believability of her performance. She is, in a word, perfect. She breathes life into an exceptionally complex character, and she adds some much needed light to what would have otherwise been a relentlessly dark story.The dialogue throughout the movie is mostly crisp and smart, and John's voice-over narration contains some real gems. The scenes of horror are appropriately horrific (though mostly bloodless), the funny parts are funny, and the occasional warm bits work surprisingly well too. Good script, good direction, good cast, good movie. It's an hour-and-a-half well spent . . . although you may feel afterward like you need a long shower in a room with a sturdy lock on the door.