Born to Kill

Born to Kill casts Lawrence Tierney as Sam Wild, a short-tempered thug who successfully romances Audrey Long’s Georgia, a wealthy newspaper heir, while also pursuing her cold-hearted sister (Claire Trevor’s Helen). (This is after Sam has brutally murdered two people, including a girl he presumably likes, out of pure jealousy.) It’s a fairly typical film-noir premise that’s employed to watchable yet entirely unmemorable effect by Robert Wise, as the director, working from a script by Eve Greene and Richard Macaulay, proves unable to wholeheartedly draw the viewer into the proceedings – with the hands-off atmosphere compounded by a lack of compelling characters. (Tierney’s tough-guy performance is entertaining, certainly, but awfully one note.) There’s little doubt, as well, that Born to Kill suffers from a midsection best described as stagnant, with the narrative taking a number of twists and turns that few viewers won’t see coming (which wouldn’t be quite so problematic, of course, if Wise hadn’t employed an often oppressively deliberate pace). The surprisingly nasty bent of the screenplay, then, proves instrumental in keeping things interesting, as Greene and Macaulay demonstrate an impressive willingness to portray their ostensible protagonist doing some seriously nasty things. It’s in that regard that Born to Kill ultimately succeeds, with the film’s engrossing final 10 minutes, in which everything comes to a head, essentially, ensuring that the whole thing ends on an exceedingly positive note.

**1/2 out of ****