What if a lie functioned in telling a story that could just have easily been the truth? What if the deliverer of that message was nothing more on the surface than a "Yes ma'am", "No ma'am", pedestrian, the good ol' country boy with a glistening smile a mother would be proud to raise, and even someone prolific - respected - a sheriff? What details might the third party listener miss, or even choose to ignore? Lou Ford is somewhat of a virtuoso on walking that thin line, to psychopathic extent, in revealing just what needs to be told to his suspicious wife and co-workers to keep them at bay and blissfully naive. In a conversation with Johnnie Pappas (Liam Aiken), a local who's been mistakenly jailed for murder, the boy asks him about the deceased in question, wondering as to whether the husband and wife tangled in this investigation deserved what they were met with. Lou's soft spoken, raspy-toned rebuttal is simple: "Nobody has it coming", he says. "That's why they don't see it coming."
Casey Affleck plays Lou Ford as something of a hyperbolic product of his own environment, constrained by the expectations he must inevitably abide by. He's a primal, caged shell of man, prone to explode with animalistic rage if triggered by even the slightest infraction of what he deems acceptable (the conduct by which he sparks an affair with the prostitute Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba) is nothing remotely close to what could be considered rascally chat). It's a powerful and somewhat courageous performance, one that Affleck executes with a ruthlessness that aims to shock, and yet teeters on the border between the calm and the grotesque. On that account, Affleck does a good job representing a real feeling in our society today.
"Killer" drops characters like Joyce Lakeland and Amy Stanton (Kate Hudson), Lou's "respectable" schoolteacher fiance, in the midst of this man's trajectory that seem vulnerable. When these women reveal their biting toughness, it's that sheer audacity that makes us that much more frightened for their safety. Much like Lou, Amy shares a disdain for her loss of free-spiritedness, which is threatened through the ceremony of marriage, which would seal her fate with a volatile, hostile man. It's a concern for which she decisively follows through in a letter of heartbreak that will again prove to push his limits in recurring fashion. Another free-spirit is Joyce, who's not afraid of the law, so much so that she's not even afraid to spit in its face. These women and their choices subvert in a lifestyle that which Winterbottom reminds us, pervades our cultures with rules and restrictions. The brash and resistant manner in which the people of the film's world navigate their lives takes a unique voice of its own, one with which director Michael Winterbottom, on top of "shock director" has earned the claim of auteur as well. It's a crackling, popping, burning rope all the way through that's inching toward a ticking stack of dynamite. If viewed only on a superficial level, that experience would shamefully dissipate.
Lou is a man who's had just about enough of the town he lives in, this place that expects him to sit still, be kind, button up his shirt and tie, behave. Like those unwritten rules, his sudden lashes of violence are incendiary when we are first subjected to them, but nonetheless a daunting, relentless truth. The beatings are here, however how horrible they are, the film says, and that is that - they exist because people like this exist.
"The Killer Inside Me"'s blacker than noir glimpse into the psychopath can be sure to raise heads in moral disgust, and seems almost destined to be deemed irresponsible, even misogynistic in its brutality. At my screening on Friday night, I listened to an array of extraneous moans and gasps, and witnessed several walkouts, most following a sequence that could have been the missing reel of the latest addition to the grisly catalogue of Rob Zombie films. Take that how you will. You may also draw striking parallels to other serial killer portraits not without their fair dose of sadism, namely Mary Harron's "American Psycho" or The Coen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men", though any of the "cool" sense of irony or alluring mystique of Patrick Bateman or Anton Chigurh felt in those earlier films has been left behind and stripped down here.
Mr. Winterbottom's picture flaunts no sympathy for the devil. It's this approach to observing a train wreck, rather than pondering over how it was caused, that evokes total response. The film wants you to consider its ideas, without getting wrapped up in the grandeur of where they may come from. This unique gauging of material we've become familiarized with over time gives it a freshness that borders on pretension, to be sure, but keeps us engaged.
This is an unadulterated glimpse into the nature of one man and his infuriation with the small town that raised him. The people in it are ones he loves, but he can't stomach the thought of sharing a life with them while being. It's also about the world we want to believe in that simply isn't there, and the ways in which we indubitably cope with it. And thrash at it. And laugh in its face. Or deny to ourselves that's even there at all. For what it's worth, it's not too much more than that; "The Killer Inside Me" is by no means an extraordinary film. The abrupt nature of Winterbottom's rushed ending gives in to an infatuation with destruction that lets its themes off the hook in a pandering to broodish, macabre sensibilities. Its performances even give the film a life its script is undeserving of possessing. But where "The Killer Inside Me" falls short of a real cinematic importance, Casey Affleck is immersive and demanding enough to give it an intensity that's hard to ignore, and isn't soon forgettable.
★★★☆☆ (3/5)
Cast & Credits
Lou Ford: Casey Affleck
Amy Stanton: Kate Hudson
Joyce Lakeland: Jessica Alba
Chester Conway: Ned Beatty
Joe Rothman: Elias Koteas
Sheriff Bob Maples: Tom Bower
Howard Hendricks: Simon Baker
Billy Boy Walker: Bill Pullman
Stone Canyon Films presents a film directed by Michael Winterbottom. Produced by Chris Hanley, Robert Weinbach, Andrew Eaton and Brad Schlei. Running time: 109 minutes. No MPAA rating.
You can find this review, its supplemental materials, as well as other extensive film coverage at EInsiders.com.
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