The good news is that Killer gives James Woods a chance to deliver the sort of strong, unaffected performance that almost makes Straight Talk and The Specialist forgivable. The bad news is that he's acting his heart out in the middle of a strictly standard melodrama. Killer recounts the true late-'20s story of Carl Panzram, a lifelong thief, rapist and murderer who, with the help of a sympathetic prison guard, was able to break the rules and record a journal of his life. While this sounds like a promising set-up, the film never focuses much on Panzram's complicated personality, choosing instead to make vague accusations against "the system" that made him without specifying what that system is or how it might be improved. Outside of Woods' performance, we're left only with a stern indictment of the prison system of the '20s and '30s. With no attempt to make contemporary connections, this seems about as timely as a scathing exposé on the Teapot Dome scandal.