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American Murderer (R13, 101mins) Directed by Matthew Gentile ***½
Jason Derek Brown. Not exactly a household name, particularly outside the US, and yet he was once mentioned in the same breath as Osama bin Laden and Whitey Bulger.
They were already on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List when the Los Angeles native joined them on December 8, 2007. His crimes? Armed robbery and the murder of a guard outside a movie theatre in Phoenix, Arizona on November 29, 2004.
But, unlike his more infamous peers (although the FBI claims they’ve received more tips on him than any other fugitive), Brown has continued to evade capture, only dropping out of the US bureau’s “chart” in September last year.
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Having already made a proof-of-concept short starring Mindhunter’s Jonathan Groff in 2019, writer-director Matthew Gentile returns to Brown’s story with his feature film debut.
Apparently inspired by both Michael Mann’s Heat and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, it paints a portrait of a career criminal known for his charisma and ability to con people out of their hard-earned cash.
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Tom Pelphery plays career criminal Jason Derek Brown in American Murderer.
In a fractured narrative that doesn’t always work, we learn of his misdeeds and trail of upset family members, friends and “marks”, as FBI Special Agent Lance Leising (Cruel Intentions’ Ryan Phillippe) attempts to understand his quarry so he can track him down.
Former landlord (and supposedly secret lover) Melanie (Frozen’s Idina Menzel) believes “Jacob” (one of the many pseudonyms Brown used) was misunderstood (“Maybe he was a little ostentatious and rubbed people up the wrong way, but when I needed Jacob’s help, he really was there for me,” she says), sister Jamie (For All Mankind’s Shantel VanSanten) details how the influence of their father was probably influential in transforming him from a “sweet, sensitive kid” to a master manipulator, mother Jeanne (Animal Kingdom’s Jacki Weaver) reveal her frustration at his inability to stop lying and brother David (Parks and Recreation’s Paul Schneider) is seemingly determined to protect his “scumbag” sibling, even if it means sacrificing his own future.
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Jason Derek Brown is still wanted for the armed robbery and murder of a guard outside a movie theatre in Phoenix, Arizona on November 29, 2004.
But if the interview-led flashbacks don’t always compel, Mank and Ozark’s Tom Pelphery’s performance as Brown certainly does. He’s a revelation as the incorrigible scammer, charming the audience just as much as those he targeted, but also revealing the cracks, flaws and obsessions that meant he most definitely wasn’t infallible.
Perhaps rightly, Gentile doesn’t try to answer all the questions (especially given Brown’s still “at large” status) and keeps the theorising as to what motivated him to a minimum (even if the “bad Dad” trope looms large here), but what he has created is a fascinating primer on one of America’s rare, understated 21st century true-crime mysteries.
Check this out before the – no doubt, inevitable – four-part Netflix docu-series is greenlit.
American Murderer is now available to rent from iTunes, GooglePlay and YouTube.
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