Review #652: 'The Killer Inside Me' (2010)

The Killer Inside Me, a brutally violent neo-noir from British director Michael Winterbottom, raised hell at Sundance, sending audiences into frenzies of disbelief and light-headedness. Of course, as usual with premature festival outrage, the film is really not as appalling as the uproar would have led you to believe. There is one truly sickening scene - as gut-wrenching as any burst of violence I've seen on screen - but, the real tragedy is that this insistence on portraying it so graphically actually takes the focus away from what is a very stylish, if tonally uneven, pulp thriller. Although Winterbottom has juggled genres and styles with relative ease in his previous work, mainly to positive results, perhaps his inexperience with tackling a project so deeply rooted in Americana leads to the film's downfall.

Small-town deputy sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is sent to warn off prostitute Joyce (Jessica Alba), who is having a dangerous affair with the son of construction tycoon Chester Conway (Ned Beatty). After realising they have the same violent sexual tastes, they begin a love affair and devise a plan to extort $10,000 from Conway, as Lou believes Conway to be responsible for the death of his brother. Unbeknownst to Joyce, Lou, despite his pleasant demeanour, is a violent sociopath, and after Lou beats Joyce to death with his bare hands and runs with the money, county attorney Howard Hendricks (Simon Baker) is called in to investigate. So Lou is forced to cover his tracks while he dotes on his fiancee Amy (Kate Hudson).

Pulp writer Jim Thompson was possibly the grimmest writer of his ilk, and The Killer Inside Me is widely thought of as his best work. I have not read the novel, so I am unaware as to how Lou Ford is written, but here he is a blank but undeniably fascinating character. He is a character that always seems in control, even when he seems surprised at just what he is capable of. Yet for someone seemingly so clinical at killing, he's not very good at it. His extortion plan is full of holes that could lead back to him, and it doesn't take long for Hendricks to figure him out. Often a glance or a word will make you wonder if he even understands himself or anything he is doing. Casey Affleck is a fine actor, and his Lou Ford is intimidating. Even though he's slightly built and his voice is a high-pitched drawl, he is a scary character to spend 90 minutes with, and he even surpasses his performance in The Assassination of Jessie James By the Coward Robert Ford (2007), of which I felt he was robbed of an Oscar.

Winterbottom wisely steers away from any psychological analysing of Ford, only hinting at childhood abuse (but not the way you would think), and glimpses of his intellect. Instead it makes you ponder this hideous character, and stay with him (but not necessarily root for) throughout the duration of the film. But it's Winterbottom's approach that is the problem here, blending a mixture of styles that causes the film to seem contrasting and haphazard. There are moments of pure noir - headlights approaching in the dust, characters sat in empty diners, cynical narration - and these scenes are at ease with the sleaze of the film's focus, but often it will kick in with some banjos at inappropriate moments that caused me to wonder whether I should be taking the film seriously. When it does take itself seriously, it's often inspired, but the final scene is so badly handled that I did wonder if a different director with more experience in the field would have made a much better film.


Directed by: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Ned Beatty, Elias Koteas, Tom Bower, Simon Baker, Bill Pullman
Country: USA/Sweden/UK/Canada

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie