Top movie on Netflix needed a better title for box office success

How well a movie performs at the box office is just as often a function of how well it's marketed as how well it's made. The current number 1 movie on Netflix in the U.S. is a perfect example of this. The marketing of any movie begins with the title. And, wow, did they ever miss on this one.

The movie in question is To Catch a Killer, a solid suspense film released in 2023. It came out on April 21st and almost immediately disappeared from movie screens everywhere. In case you forgot, this was the year of BarbenHeimer. Barbie grossed $1.45 billion, while Oppenheimer took in $976 million. Oh, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie wedged between them with the tidy sum of $1.36 billion.

To Catch a Killer wasn't quite as popular. It brought in the grand sum of $3,138,750. That's three million, not three billion. I mean, you and I would be happy with that amount of cash, but that's abysmal business for any film. 67 films grossed more than $100 million that year. The list of the top 200 hundred performers on boxofficemojo.com stops with Kandahar with $9.3 million. So, yeah, this was a major flop. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth watching.

To Catch a Killer deserves its top spot on Netflix

This movie would have done much better at the box office if it didn't have such a boring generic title. It sounds like something made for the Lifetime Channel with a cast of soap opera rejects. No offense, but 90 percent of Lifetime movies seem to be about a woman pursued by a sociopathic husband or ex. If she survives - which she usually does - she is then transported to a Hallmark movie, where a devastatingly handsome Christmas tree farmer teaches her how to love again.

There are no redemptive Christmas tree farmers here. There is a deeply troubled antagonist, who murders 29 people on New Year's Day in Baltimore. Enter our protagonists, FBI Special Agent Lammark and Baltimore police officer Eleanor Falco. Lammark has a critical failure on his record and has to battle the PR considerations of the local government, as well as find the killer. Falco is battling her own demons, perhaps even more than the killer. She's just better at handling them- well, at least marginally.

I know it sounds like the bare bones of a plot you've seen played out a hundred times, or even a thousand if you're a major fan of psychological thrillers. But the story takes a few unexpected twists and not all of those "unexpected" twists that show up in other movies like this. It's paced and filmed well, and the plot holds together throughout.

Perhaps best of all are the performances of the two leads. Ben Mendelsohn (The Outsider, Secret Invasion, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) employs every ounce of his world-weary persona in the role. He's completely believable as the FBI agent driven to fight through politics and his own embattled reputation to accomplish his goal.

Shailene Woodley (The Fault in Our Stars, Big Little Lies, the Divergent films) is an excellent counterpart to Mendelsohn. He plays Lammark almost exclusively as a man who rarely drops his guard. Woodley plays Eleanor as a woman who has to power through her inner battles to accomplish her goals. She's brittle but never to the point of breaking, and ultimately proves to be at least as strong as Lammark. Woodley portrays this beautifully, as she never comes off as a victim of anyone but herself.

The filmmakers subtly emphasized this distinction between the characters' vulnerability throughout the movie. Mendelsohn's Lammark is never referenced by his first name, while Woodley's police officer is almost exclusively referred to as Eleanor. This even extends to subtitled dialogue. It's a smart move, one that subconsciously enhances the character arc for both.

To Catch a Killer scored a solid 6.6 rating on imdb.com. It didn't fare quite as well on Rotten Tomatoes with a 53 percent critics score. Audiences liked it a bit better, posting a score of 61 percent. It was released under the title Misanthrope in most international markets. While not great, at least isn't so awfully generic. And hey, Rex Reed liked it a lot, so you don't have to go by my recommendation.

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