Killers in the House (TV Movie 1998) Poster

(1998 TV Movie)

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4/10
Any one Home?
sol-kay19 June 2006
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** Illogical and over plotted thriller that has so many twists and turns in it that it leaves you lost in the woods halfway into the movie without a compass to help you find your way out. Robbing their own bank four bank employees take off with 10 million dollars in cash but have one of them the crazy and vicious Kendell, Lori Ann Triolo, badly wounded in a shootout with the bank guard.

Finding this mansion on their way to the airport, where the four robbers plan to make their getaway, the head hood former bank manager Beckett, Andrew Divoff, decides to spend the night there until the heats off and the rain, which is pouring down like a tropical monsoon, stops. to Becketts and his gangs big surprise they find out that the mansion, which he thought was deserted, has new owners the Sawyers.

Moving into the mansion just that afternoon the Saywers Rodney & Jennie, Mario Van Peebles & Holly Robinson, don't know who to call or turn too for help and are quickly overpowered by the hoodlums with their son Malik, Michael J. Pagan, hiding upstairs. Rodney who at first went outside to check the hoods car is startled to find the wounded Kendell in the back seat with a gun pointed to his head.

Malik who saw what was happening sneaks downstairs and takes off with the 10 million in stolen cash but later stupidly hides the money in the fire place having the millions, and the only reason that Beckett & Co. kept his parents alive, go up in smoke.The movie gets really nuts when Rodney's friend and local lawyer Pendelton, Hal Lindan, pops in to check if every things all right. Pendelton is secretly told that it isn't, with Rodney using some kind of sign language which should have had he leave and call for help. The big jerk instead of getting help or calling the police on his cellphone after he's allowed to leave by the hoodlums bursts in like he was a member of an AFT assault team and gets himself shot to death for his brainless effort.

Playing for time Jennie puts on a Doctor Kildare act in trying to save Kendell's life only to end up killing her because she had no idea of what she was doing, which has her. Kendell's lover Beckett then goes crazy with the two, Annie and Rodney, taking off in the confusion together with the now out of hiding Malik and barricade themselves in an upstairs bedroom.

Meanwhile Beckett is slowly going insane hallucinating that he's now the man of the house which makes his two fellow bank robbers Sykes & Henley, Vincent Gale & Dean McKenzie, a wee bit worried about his mental condition. the two start to feel that it would be better to take off with the money, they still don't know that it's been burned to a crisps by the absent-minded Malik, and leave him to flounder around in his own fantasy world.

Hard to take ending with the three remaining hoods being knocked out by a falling chandelier with Beckett rushing to the garden thinking that the 10 million is hidden there and getting both his feet caught in a number of bear-traps set all around the house by the mansion's handyman Billy, Josh Holland. It turned out that Billy just happened to be Beckett's lovers, the dead Kendell's, brother!

There's so many plot-holes as well as illogic action taken by both the Sawyers and the bank robbers, turned kidnappers, lead by the out of his bird Beckett you need a road map to just follow the story. Even if you want to enjoy and watch the movie "Killers in the House" as a decent made-for-TV thriller your brain short-circuits your emotions by not being able to make you overlook the fact that the film, or the people in it, make absolutely no sense at all in what their doing!
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5/10
If ever a need for a Union
marbleann6 June 2009
Warning: Spoilers
SPOILER*********** if you do not mind wasting 90 minutes of your life you will never get back. For the rest of you proceed. *******************************************************************

Talk about employee dissatisfaction! Seemingly half of the employees of a small town bank robs it. They get off with the money and take refuge in a mansion who one thinks is deserted. It is not and the rest of the movie is about how the family of 3 that inherited the house survives the night. Again, as in most of these movies the smartest person is young child.. But all of this never would of happened if in the very beginning of the movie a cop who goes to the ATM sees the robbery taking place doesn't do something that is so stupid you wonder why the whole town isn't a haven for criminal activity. Instead of the cop calling 911 for back up he decides to take on the heavily armed bank robbers himself! I was shocked when he said drop your guns and it was only him standing there. Who wrote this movie? It would of made more sense if no one saw them commit the robbery. In any case even if the movie is filled with implausible acts such as a lone senior citizen lawyer(Hal Linden} thinking he was James Bond and taking on the robbers on his own and getting killed it was fairly entertaining and better then half the movies in the theaters today. But just think if the bank itself treated its employees right half of them would not have robbed the place. lol
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Suspenseful Experience
Zebra-525 April 1999
My heart was literally pounding throughout the entire movie! Mario VanPeebles and Holly Robinson Peete lead an edgy and frighteningly melodramatic cast. A down-on-their-luck black family suddenly inherits a Victorian mansion in Washington state, and falls in harm's way when a quartet of ruthless and hostile bank robbers decide to take cover in the mansion on a stormy night while on-the-run from the police. The entire movie is full of characters being chased around or held at gunpoint, barricading doors, and lying to or outfoxing each other in a delicate and dangerous game of "cat-and-mouse." Its plot is surreal, but gave me an exhilarating experience. Some parts are funny, especially the ending. A 'must-see' if you like horror!
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3/10
Boring, generic...
elu5iv310 June 2001
This movie doesn't require much critique. It was the typical, boring, cliched Hollywood action garbage that litter movie channels these days. The family "miraculously" escape death time and time again while the bad guy descends into madness, yadda, yadda. No depth, one dimensional characters. Why is junk like this being funded? It was "watchable", but I knew what was coming around each corner. Could we PLEASE get some intellectual movies?

3/10
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2/10
bummer
mefolkes12 May 2008
I have to agree with the comment above about the rampant illogic. When Mrs. Sawyer conked one crook near the end with a toilet tank cover, she could have finished him off and taken his street-sweeper shotgun. She did neither. I agree also with the comment about the crazy lawyer who tried to be a one-man tactical team. I don't understand how three thugs with semi-automatic pistols would yield to an old man with a bolt action hunting rifle. But, once they did, why didn't Mrs. Sawyer grab the weapons they tossed on the floor and arm herself and her husband? A few talented actors, but a script without a sense of direction, so it was a waste of time.
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This ain't no bed and breakfast!
Vice-53 November 1999
"Killers in the House" is a cool suspense flick that blends elements of films directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Don Siegel. It has the tones of a horror-suspense flick with the raw cops and robbers movie. Mario Van Peebles plays Rodney, a family man who with his wife Jennie (Holly R. Pete) and their son get trapped in an old Victoria house by a group of slimeball bank-robbers led by the ultra-sleazy character actor Andrew Divoff. What follows is a break-neck chase between our heroes and the money-hungry scumbags.
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