#108 - Born to Kill

Well, I didn't have to wait very long. Those of you who read my Dillinger review(the old one), know that I was withholding judgement on Lawrence Tierney until I saw more of his work. I couldn't tell if he was a great actor playing a great part, or a one trick pony that fit perfectly into the kind of movie that was being made. I have reached the conclusion that he is the latter, but I am okay with that. I'm sold. I think he's great. Sure, he's not the best actor, but what he does is so entertaining to watch it doesn't matter. It's not like he's Keanu Reeves doing Shakespeare. This man is stone cold, hard boiled, and all those other descriptions of a classic gangster heavy. His death stare is absolutely perfect. You do not want this guy to give you his death stare. It will turn your blood cold. I realized that I had reservations about him because the movie he was in wasn't that great. Put him into something with a better script and better director, and his talents come shining right through. While writing this I also realized that for some dumb reason, I called him Gene instead of Lawrence in my review of Warren Oates' Dillinger. I fixed it, so all of you who noticed...(stunning silence)...can withhold your comments.

Now that I have said all of that, I will tell you that I think this movie actually belongs to Claire Trevor. It's all about that no good dirty dame. She gets caught up into Tierney's world of murder, and is somehow attracted to it all. She starts playing the game. Not the murder game, but the deception and backstabbing game. I gotta tell you, she is a worthy adversary for Tierney and at many times proves herself to be on equal standing with him in the department of being stone cold nasty. I can't say that I understand the reason for having them be in love with each other, except for danger attracting danger, but it is what it is, and the interaction between the two of them is so tremendously compelling that I can look past it. Major kudos to Claire Trevor for sticking it to the king of hard cases.

This movie forces me to specify another sub-category in this film genre. I wouldn't say that it's a film noir like White Heat because it doesn't have that stylized grit to it that noir reminds me of. It's not a gangster movie because none of these people are gangsters. Sure, Tierney is a criminal and has some underworld type things going on, but were aren't dealing with organized crime or anything like that. I guess the only label I can put on it is Crime Drama, but that's kind of by default. I don't really have a good label for this kind of movie. I guess it could be a pulp kind of thing, but I don't really have a good definition for what is pulp, so I can't go with that. I guess the main thing is not what it is, it's what it isn't, and that's a noir film or gangster flick.