Adapting Jim Thompson's 1952 nihistic crime novel has proven to be as slippery and evasive as the subject of the story itself. The project has been in the works for years with some of the biggest names in Hollywood history chomping at the bit to be a part of it. At one time, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe were set to star in a 1956 version, but that fell apart when the Monroe died. It's hard not to imagine how those three heavyweights would've fared with material this extreme, so violent and misogyenistic that it caused some people to walk out at the Sundance Film Festival. While graphic, The Killer Inside Me isn't violent for the sake of being violent. This is a character study at it's core, a brutal film about a man who's rage knows no bounds and takes precedent over everything else.
The Killer Inside Me did manage to make it to the screen once, with Stacey Keach in the role of Lou Ford. For this version, we get the younger and more talented Affleck brother Casey as the demented town sheriff with a horrible secret. Lou Ford seems like a nice guy. A small town cop in a Texas town where pleasantry is the norm. You aren't a man if you don't call a lady "maam", and use your "please" and "thank yous". Lou is a pretty average guy. Some would call him dull, or plain. That boring quality he exudes is all just a cover. A mask to hide the wolf that lies underneath. He's a serial killer, a fact he's been keeping secret ever since he made his first kill as a boy.
Boring though he may be, Lou has a way with women. That way just happens to be pretty rough. Sent to a house on the edge of town to kick out Joyce(Jessica Alba), a prostitute who's gotten mixed up with the son of a wealthy town magnate(Ned Beatty), Lou discovers she's a lot more like him than he could've ever dreamed. After he slaps her around a little bit just to scare her off, they both seem shocked to realize that they sorta like it that way. They quickly form a sick, sadomasochistic relationship. Lou might not be able to love, but if there's anyone he could love, it'd be Joyce. That could turn out to be a problem, since he's already involved with Amy(Kate Hudson), a sexy schoolteacher who thinks she's found the perfect man.
His violent urges reawakened, Lou must find a way to kill at will without arousing suspicion. In a horric act of violence, he bashes Joyce's face to the point where her eye is literally hanging out of her skull. The camera never pulls away once, nor should it. The story takes place solely from Lou's perspective, and to him the massacre is as beautiful as a rainbow. I can understand why some people wanted to leave. It was enough to nearly turn my iron stomach. Yet it makes me wonder how those who gave up on the movie after the ferocious attack would react to the much more agonizing demise of another female later on. While Joyce's death was so much about rage, this one was equally disturbing on a completely different level, more about power and humiliation. That's the one that gives me nightmares.
No director over the last decade has a more diverse resume than Michael Winterbottom(
A Mighty Heart
,
Code 46
). From Iraq War domentary to sci-fi romances, the man has done it all. He leaps into film noir with an obvious enthuasiasm you can sense from the pulpy title sequence. It's obvious he knows the history of the genre. The women are devilishly sexy, and the camera can't seem to get enough of them. Unlike your typical noir, where women use their seductive powers over men liberally, they are the posessions and tools here. Alba and Hudson are pitch perfect for what their roles require, and their relatively innocent reputations serve to make their falls from grace all the more terrible. Hudson has been on a roll lately, now that he's gotten away from those horrid McConaughey rom-coms.
It's not fair to compare Casey Affleck to Brando, Dicaprio, Cruise, or any of the other stars who's names have been attached to the film before. Affleck's low key cool is just right, yet he also posesses a menacing glare that I had never noticed before. When he flips the switch from charming to terrifying, it's a subtle transition that makes it more alarming. I consider myself to be one of his biggest fans, and I would put this as his best performance yet.
Unfortunately, The Killer Inside Me completely goes off the rails as Lou's life falls apart around him. In a rush to tie up the story's many loose ends, it heaps murder upon murder in rapid fire succession, making death ultimately pretty pointless. Those people who thought the sheer brutality of the first attack was gratuitous were right. They were just right at the wrong time. The conclusion is stupidly over-the-top, and it does the rest of the perfectly constructed film a disservice.
The Killer Inside Me isn't going to be for everybody. If you have a weak stomach, it's probably not for you, but you'll be missing out on one of the best performances of the year, and a solid crime flick that will be hard for anyone to forget.
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