John and Michael are taught by their father at a young age that people are merely piggy banks... if you need money, just break one open. Charming and brilliant, they roam the country robbing and murdering anyone foolish enough to get in the car with them. After their partnership becomes strained and John sets off on his own, he discovers his father had a secret family... another wife and a daughter in another state. With a renewed sense of purpose he sets out to find and kill his stepsister. But this may be more challenging than he thinks... has he met his match?
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With a title like "Born Killers" and Tom Sizemore, you would think the film had some potential to be entertaining. Unfortunately, Seizemore's screen time is limited to short flashbacks. For a movie that you anticipate would have lots of brutal action, "Born Killers" has very little action of any kind. Off screen violence, frequent flashbacks, and a plot adrift in nonsense, is all there is. These killers are so perfect that even though they pursue violence like a hobby, zero police are involved. The most obvious flaw however is that the film threatens to talk itself to death. Boring conversations, between characters you don't find the least bit interesting is the real "killer" here. - MERK
I thought the following two quotes were the most memorable in BORN KILLERS (aka PIGGY BANKS, which would have been a better title for this film, even apart from its use in the poignant father-sons sharing context which brought to mind Polonius' advice to Laertes in HAMLET, but which is truncated to meaninglessness in the "memorable quotes" section here):* * * QUOTE #1) Serial Killer John Vanderslip (his voice-over as he roams a store looking for masking tape--he comes back to Gertie's house with a roll of duct tape, of which she already had a shelf full, qualifying for inclusion in the movie "goofs" category): I'd ended hundreds of--I guess you'd say--human lives, and what good did it do? I wasn't rich, and I wasn't satisfied. Either there was some invisible purpose to my life, or there wasn't. I needed to find out if 'thinning the herd' was part of it, or if I could stop if I had an endless supply of cash. So I would put God to the test." (John then buys a lottery ticket--another goof, because this is supposed to be taking place, and actually is being filmed, in Salt Lake City, UT, and they don't sell lottery tickets there.)* * * QUOTE #2) John (after downing the fatally poisoned shot of Irish Creme his half-sister\lover Gertie has come back from the kitchen with): No more for me, please.Gertie: That one should do you.* * * I don't want to clutter the "memorable quotes" section with TWO of my own, so please vote "yes" for #1 or "no" for #2. Thank you. Voting ends one year from today (March 10, 2010).
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.
