Letters from a Killer (1998)
From the cover, Letters from a Killer made me expect a bad movie. Look at that photo of Patrick Swayze with a bowie knife and the tagline of “Don’t Open the Mail”. It’s selling itself as a killer mailman slasher movie. Thankfully, this is a better film than it advertises. Unfortunately, the further you get into this thriller’s plot, the worse it gets.
Patrick Swayze plays Race Darnell, a man convicted and sentenced to death for a murder he didn’t commit. On death row, he receives letters from 5 women with whom he forms “relationships”. When a retrial exonerates him, one of his girlfriend pen pals discovers that she wasn’t the only one, begins killing her rivals, and framing Race for their murders.
This is a picture that would be much better if it were worse. There’s no law against dating multiple women at once. Race isn’t committing any crimes. Actually, sitting on death row wrongfully for 7 years means he's the victim. You might call him a scumbag but put yourself in his shoes. If you didn’t believe you’d ever be freed, would you turn down a woman who writes to you affectionately? Keep in mind the emotional tax of being in prison, surrounded by criminals and vindictive guards every day. He's not sleeping with any of them. I say go for it.
The picture gets interesting once Race is released. Suddenly there’s a woman who swears she’ll have her revenge on him and he doesn’t know who it could be. This, on top of some compelling drama. People think he’s a reptile who's managed to slime his way out of a just sentence. He just wants a normal life but he's stuck dealing with his five "relationships" - and not in a comedic fashion. There are good scenes as he is asked whether he’s admitting the truth to the women because he genuinely feels guilt, or just to save his own skin.
As Letters from a Killer progresses, the crazier and more obvious it becomes. The killer is free to go about as they please, killing left and right and leaving no clues behind except for that thing that will help propel the story forward. In more than one scene, someone suffers a severe injury and carries on as if nothing's happened. Not because it’s a “flesh wound” but because it has to be a surprise that they’re not dead or to generate some artificial tension. While the plot makes sense and everything is explained, this is a movie that could've easily been solved much, much faster if someone just called the police or sat down and had a conversation. With the way the ending plays out, I’m reminded of several action movies where yeah the city was saved or whatever, but the hero would be thrown in jail for causing huge amounts of property damage, breaking countless laws, and blatantly disobeying orders. Even with the excuse that Race encounters some of the most trigger-happy police officers I’ve ever seen in a thriller, he would have had a lot of explaining to do and some serious jail time.
You’re not getting Johnny Castle cutting up women foolish enough to answer chain letters in Letters from a Killer. Actually, the killer doesn't send letters at all; only audiotapes. It begins with a good premise but by the end, it's frequently laughable and preposterous. I can’t even call it lousy. It’s just ok, the kind of mediocre that makes you feel that ultimately, this is one of these films you would watch and never, ever meet anyone else who did. (Full-screen version on VHS, October 14, 2015)