"Born to Kill" - Very effective. Until yesterday it had only one cinematic meaning for me: Private Joker's helmet has the same tag in Kubrick's Vietnam inferno, "Full Metal Jacket".Robert Wise's crime movie is not the best noir I've ever seen, but it has its own values. The film is turning out the femme fatale tradition to show an obsessed woman's sick relationship to a brutal maniac guy (looks like Ben Affleck:)), a typical social status climber, who is similarly possessed by the same woman. That's fair enough for a Shakespearean massacre. The story is thrown into "the biggest little city in the world" (Reno), where Laura - I mean - Laury Palmer is getting murdered. In contrast to the "Twin Peaks" here we know exactly who is the brutal killer, the suspense is getting shape through the physical and mental consequences of the case.
If you want to watch a psychological crime drama, you found your movie for tonight, but if you need a really dark tricksy noir classic, step back three years in time and check my favourite "Double Indemnity" by Billy Wilder (1944).
[I swear it is only a coincidence, but my new favourite second line character, Elisha Cook Jr. appears in this movie again as Mart (obsessed too, of course). Maybe his name was the first at the letter 'L' as 'Loser' in the "Hollywood telephone book". Finally I found his equivalent in contemporary cinema: if I say only the name, William H. Macy, and you will know Elisha Cook Jr.'s all attributes (even his physichal ones...)]
Wish I could show his hazy voice too:
6/10
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