The Craigslist Killer (2011)

Pretty Good

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Philip Markoff (Jake McDorman) is a top Boston University medical student beloved by his professor. He zeros in on Megan McAllister (Agnes Bruckner) and pushes to get married. He seems like the perfect guy on the surface but nobody sees the darkness beneath. He becomes obsessed with Craigslist and starts attacking the women on those ads with escalating violence. Police detectives Bennett (William Baldwin) investigates.The start is way too slow. The tension is too low at the start. There is basically no tension. This should a horror story or a dramatic thriller. There is nothing close to that here. These are all perfectly functional actors given rather bland material despite the scary subject matter. It's a movie of the week at best.

OK, so when I went to buy one of my favorite films from Blockbuster, I found out that it was one of those Buy One, Get One Free deals. The only other movie, which had at least a dozen copies left, was a Lifetime original movie entitled The Craigslist Killer. At first, I had no intent of actually watching it, but will nothing to do, I watched it. To start off, it is much better than I thought and probably one the best if not the best Lifetime film ever (remember, it's Lifetime and the movies are cheesy and bad). About the first 20 to 30 minuets of the movie are all about showing how Phillip Markoff (Jake McDorman)and Megan McAllister (Agnes Bruckner) met and fell in love. Then, the film takes off. Bruckner and William Baldwin who plays Detective Bennett provide very believing roles, but McDorman's is mediocre. None the less, the film becomes very intriguing with Markoff living a double life as a good boy doctor and a criminal. Then the last ten minuets happen. In real life, Markoff didn't actually love McAllister but used her as cover. In the movie, obviously a Lifetime trademark, they make it this corny, mushy movie in which Markoff takes his own life and writes his so-called love's name on the wall. The music is terrible, the acting is decent, the story is very interesting, and the romance is horrible. Could be a 7 or 6 without the end, but a 5/10 which is none the less watchable. If it's on TV and you have nothing to do, you should watch it.

Though very much different, why did the last scene evoke memories of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in 1951's "A Place in the Sun?"Philip Markoff had it all. Brilliant beyond belief, a winning personality and a girl who loved him deeply, and yet he threw it away due to the fact that he was a complete psycho. Amazing that he was able to balance his life for as long as he did.The film didn't concentrate on his family life other than to say that his parents separated and his mother showed up at his engagement party. As quickly as she showed up, that's how fast she evaporated from the film.Once the police were on to Philip, he goes downhill very quickly.You wonder how is fiancé could have been naive. Love is certainly blind.

Like the rest of the world (it was a trending topic on Twitter) I was anxiously awaiting the world premiere of The Craigslist Killer. I'll give it this: for a Lifetime movie, it wasn't half bad. Could it have been better? Yes. At times the acting was bad, the music was cheesy, and it was a bit slow for the first thirty minutes. I was expecting the killing scenes to be a bit more intense than they were, but I guess that's what you get with a woman's network. I think if this had been taken to the big screen and directed by Scorsese it would have been a box office hit. You have to remember that Lifetime is a network directed towards women, so the movies are directed towards women as well (hence all the romance in the beginning.) All in all I'd say it was a decent movie. It wasn't something I would pay money to see, but it was something that filled my time and kept me semi interested.