Release Date: 6/18/2010 (Limited)
“The problem with living in a small town is everyone thinks they know who you are.”
Set in 1959 and based on the novel of the same name, The Killer Inside Me tells the gruesome and graphic story of a murderous sociopath small town Texas Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford, played by Casey Affleck. On the surface, Lou Ford is an honest fellow. Clean-cut, courteous and mild mannered. But behind the facade of the upstanding and baby-faced law man is something far more sinister, and from the moment Lou extinguishes his cigar in the palm of harmless vagrant, we know we’re about to witness true evil. However, no matter how evil Lou Ford was, no matter what gruesome acts of violence he inflicted (especially toward women), I didn’t really care. The film lacked tension between characters and each scene seemed flat. It was as if director Michael Winterbottom attempted to remake American Psycho, set it the mid-west, and failed miserably.
The first sign we get that Lou Ford is a two faced homicidal maniac comes quite early in the film. Lou is approached by construction tycoon Chester Conway (Ned Beatty). Conway sends him to pay off a whore named Joyce (Jessica Alba) and run her out of town. Except it doesn’t quite work out that way. Joyce lives on the out-skirts of the small town and our first encounter of with her is…”flavorful” to say the least. She becomes the willing “object of affection” to Lou’s twisted and sadistic lust. For a while, they fall victim to each other’s erotic and blissful fantasies. That is until Joyce, unknowingly, becomes just another cog in a blackmail scheme Lou’s cooked up that involves Conway’s son. What follows is probably one of the most brutally realistic scenes in film history. Lou beats Joyce until her face resembles nothing short of ground beef. Literally. However, as the story progresses, suspicion of Lou being responsible for the sudden influx in anarchy reaches instability. He must convince everyone of his innocence. He must convince his boss Sheriff Bob Maples (Tom Bower) his girlfriend Amy Stanton (Kate Hudson) and Howard Hendricks (Simon Baker) a big shot investigator hot on his trail. But Lou’s plan eventually unravels until her reaches a boiling point. A final stand. A “Tony Montana-esque” standoff. Lou bunkers himself in his booby-trapped house and waits for what’s inevitably coming for him.
“Around here, if you’re not a man and a gentlemen, you’re nothing. God help you if you’re not.”
Casey Affleck turns in another solid performance. Not great…but good. Nothing that comes close to competing with his Oscar nominated performance in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, or even the his underrated performance in Gone Baby Gone. His Lou Ford has moments of pure blood curdling coldness that rings true to the likes of Hannibal Lecter and even Norman Bates. But he also shows times where his damn raspy “I’m 29 and still going through puberty” voice is just to much to take. To much for me to actually believe that this man is capable of such madness. Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson, while satisfying my pornographic fantasies for each actress, impress very little throughout the story. Alba has her seductive moments that reach back to her days in Sin City while Kate Hudson flashes traits that made her Almost Famous, but each falls just short.
I truly feel that the man responsible for the drowning of The Killer Inside Me is director Michael Winterbottom. Winterbottom’s artsy and visually stylish direction made him a prolific filmmaker. Here, he strayed too far from what the story was about, and in the end, you don’t care about what any of these characters are doing. He over did some scenes, pile driving the audience with violence for the sake of having violence. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for a film having scenes where people get beat to a bloody pulp. But when it lacks depth, it loses its effectiveness and the audience doesn’t care. They’re more apt to look away rather than focus on what’s happening. I feel that if another director had their shot at this film, it could have been great. Say Darren Aronofsky, who’s known for channeling great actors while making a visually stylish film, ala The Fountain or Requiem for a Dream. Just throwing it out there. If this was a good adaptation of Jim Thompson’s book, well, then I don’t really want to read it. Very disappointed.
IMDb: 6.7/10
Rottentomatoes: 55%
MovieWiseGuys: 6.0/10