Written and Directed by Matthew Gentile
Starring: Tom Pelphrey, Ryan Phillippe, Idina Menzel and Jackie Weaver
Rated R
Runtime: 1 hour, 44 minutes
in select theaters October 21 and On Demand and Digital October 28

by Gary M. Kramer, Staff Writer

The pleasure of a seeing a film about a conman is watching others fall for his obvious lies. American Murderer is based on the true story of Jason Derek Brown (Tom Pelphrey), who is first seen entering a pawnshop to sell his father’s watch and his late mother’s ring. As Brown recounts his sob story—his mother died of painful, pancreatic cancer—and cries real tears, the pawnbroker agrees to buy the jewelry from Brown for $2,000. However, as the money is being counted out, Brown’s demeanor changes and he asks if there is a back way out of the store.

It is soon revealed (and is no big surprise) that Brown owes some men a large sum of cash. While Brown tries to stay a step ahead of those guys, the FBI, led by Special Agent Lance Leising (Ryan Phillippe), is also on his tail. Brown is on the FBI’s Most Wanted List because of a crime he committed, which American Murderer will present later.

Writer/director Matthew Gentile’s film makes Brown a kind of folk hero, someone who claims he can sell ice to Eskimos. However, Pelphrey’s performance isn’t quite charming enough. (It is hard not to consider what Phillippe could have done with the role, had this film been made back in 2004 when the events occurred). Seeing Brown talk his way into a VIP area in a nightclub, or partying on a boat, show him acting slick or smooth, but he always comes across as a bit smarmy. Pelphrey only makes Brown appealing when he is “working” Melanie (Idina Menzel), a single mother he befriends and beds, by exploiting her fantasies. 

It is too easy to see through Brown, as his own mother, Jeanne (Jacki Weaver), does. In one of the film’s best scenes, she pointedly asks him, “Any part of that brain of yours that could just tell you to stop?” before telling him that he is, “delusional enough to buy your own bullshit.” 

American Murderer should make Brown someone to root for—given the story’s outcome—but Gentile seems to go at it in a backhanded fashion or miss that point completely. Scenes of Brown’s growing desperation cause him to make the bad decision to rob an armored car that gets the FBI’s attention. At least the sequence of the crime, which involves Brown killing a 24-year-old security guard for $56,000, not the $300,000 he anticipated, has some energy to it.

But the pacing feels off during most of the film. When Brown is thrown out of a strip club for not having money to pay for a lap dance, it is tedious. When Brown gets beaten and threatened by thugs, it is not particularly menacing. Even an episode where Brown and his brother David (Paul Schneider) steal some golf clubs, only to get pulled over by the police, feels slack. Maybe Gentile is trying to emphasize how Brown is capable of getting out of trouble as easily as he gets into it, but American Murderer lacks verve. Scenes of Brown being haunted by his crime feel lazy. 

If Pelphrey is flat as Brown, Ryan Philippe is appropriately earnest as Leising. His interviews with Melanie or Brown’s sister, Jamie (Shantel VanSanten) have just the right hint of condescension, whereas an exchange Leising has with David is sufficiently humbling. The film is best when the actors sizzle. Case and point, a pair of scenes with Kyle Wallace (Moises Arias, sporting grills) are compelling; Brown tries to convince Kyle to rob the armored car with him, whereas Leising coerces Kyle to talk. Likewise, a flashback to Brown’s childhood and his father gives the character actor Kevin Corrigan, a terrific cameo.

American Murderer is certainly watchable, but that is mainly because the story is not uninteresting, and the supporting cast is so strong.