For the last couple years, I've felt a little sad when I've seen a movie starring Tom Sizemore. Here is a really good actor with a strong presence who starred in two of the great films from the 1990's: Michael Mann's Heat, the film that had Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro collide, and Stephen Spielberg's gripping World War II epic Saving Private Ryan. His resume also includes the under-appreciated science fiction yarns Red Planet and Strange Days, and popular titles like Black Hawk Down and Natural Born Killers. That's a lot of good movies. However, recently, he seems to be co-headlining [I use that term loosely] direct-to-video garbage. Last year's dreadfully junky Ring Around the Rosie is a prime example. I don't know if his oft-publicized personal problems have dramatically affected his career choices or not, but it's a real shame to see the man star in hastily-produced, cheap productions.

Which brings us to Born Killers, a thriller that is surprisingly dialogue and narration heavy about a psychotic family. The film's actually not all that bad, but given the DVD's title and cover art, I'm not sure it delivers what people would expect.

Born Killers starts with a young girl carrying a gun to her science class and then shooting the room up. It bears absolutely no relevance to the plot itself, except possibly to suggest the theme of the movie {which in hindsight it actually doesn't do well}. We then move on to two brothers who have spent their adult lives on a killing spree in order to fund their free bird lifestyles. Through flashbacks, we learn that, after the death of their mother, the boys were raised by their father, played by Sizemore, a maniac who teaches his sons to behave the way they do. The apples don't fall far from the tree, the film wants us to believe.

But then, shortly into the movie, John, who I take to be the oldest son, shoots and kills his brother Michael. Their scenes together aren't over then, though, as there are additional flashbacks not only to when the brothers were kids living with their father but also the brothers together before John shoots Michael. The first half of the film, as you might surmise, becomes rather jumbled chronologically.

I was about ready to write off this movie as just plain bad when John's half-sister Gertie is introduced. She's played by Lauren German, who was so strikingly beautiful in Eli Roth's Hostel II last year. Despite their familial relationship, John and Gertie fall in love, or at least John falls in love anyway. The rest of the film purports to be a character study of the two. The acting by the pair (John is portrayed by an actor named Jake Muxworthy) is surprisingly quite good, especially by German. Unfortunately, the drama never rings true, in part because the central premise of the film is completely absurd. At one point, John admits that he and his brother killed hundreds of people. Give us a break. I won't spoil more of the picture, but Gertie's back-story and intentions are equally absurd. The dialogue, too, while delivered well, is stilted and rather silly.

As a side note, if you watch this film, pay close attention to a scene when John looks at photographs of his father supplied by Gertie. Sizemore sports the most ludicrous fake moustaches I've seen since the original Sleepaway Camp. It's an unintentionally comical moment.

Sizemore was in the Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone-fueled Natural Born Killers, a veritable orgy of mayhem and destruction, which ironically has a trailer on this DVD. This film's title merely drops the adjective natural , but that doesn't mean you should expect another exercise in kinetic misanthropy here; in fact, the pacing of this movie in the second half becomes almost pastoral.

Born Killers does finish on a classy note: the end credits scroll through to the tune of the Silversun Pickups' "Kissing Families," a charged little number from the Smashing Pumpkins-esque band who produced the great rock song "Lazy Eye" a little while back. Not only thematically appropriate, the song also wraps up the flick in style.

The DVD

Video:

Born Killers has a 16x9 anamorphic widescreen presentation. The image is fairly sharp and clear aside from flashback sequences that are purposefully shot differently. The film's visual details don't matter all that much as the locations are rather boring and nondescript, aside from a picnic scene in a tranquil graveyard.

Sound:

Born Killers's DVD release sports a choice of two audio tracks: 5.1 Dolby Digital or 2.0 Dolby Digital. I viewed the movie with the former and found the track to be mixed fairly well, if in a uniform and unremarkable manner. Born Killers plays out more like a drama than an action piece, so this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The songs used in the soundtrack stand out well.

Subtitles are available in English and Spanish.

Extras:

When the disc is played, trailers for Fearnet.com, Natural Born Killers: The Director's Cut, Werewolf: The Devil's Hound, Boy Eats Girl, Invasion, Skinwalkers, and Shattered precede the menu. They're also accessible, as a group, through an "Also From Lionsgate" link on the menu.

There are no extras devoted to the feature Born Killers itself, not even a trailer.

Final Thoughts:

The best part of Born Killers is the acting, especially by Lauren German. She and Tom Sizemore need better scripts. The film is watchable, but be warned that it becomes quite talkative - in a Lifetime Channel way - in the second half and may not be what you're looking for if you picked up this title as a blind buy or rental.

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