As viewers of Netflix’s The Watcher can attest, there are few things more infuriating than a thriller based on true events wrapping up without a definitive conclusion, but at least last year’s American Murderer told an entertaining story before it reached an open-ended finale.
Writer and director Matthew Gentile’s underrated crime caper flew too far under the radar for an insanely implausible tale that was so far-fetched there was no way it could have been concocted by a screenwriter, with the film holding stellar Rotten Tomatoes scores of 70 and 95 percent from critics and audiences.
Ozark breakout Tom Pelphrey stars as Jason Derek Brown, a con artist extraordinaire who bankrolls a life of luxury through a series of complex and intricate scams. Hot on his tail, Ryan Phillipe’s FBI agent Lance Leising does everything he can to try and put his man behind bars, and he thinks he’s got him caught once the money begins to run out.
It’s not a spoiler to say that Brown didn’t end up getting arrested, seeing as he was very publicly removed from the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List only one month before American Murderer was released, which is the sort of coincidence that you couldn’t make up no matter how hard you tried.
Pelphrey is magnetic in the lead role, and manages to ensure that you never find yourself rooting for a wanted fugitive and killer, while audiences have been drawn to the irresistible lures of American Murderer on streaming. Per FlixPatrol, the desperately unsung slice of life has become a Top 10 iTunes hit in multiple countries around the world, and there may end up being a sequel yet.