Review of Killer Joe (2012) by Doctor S — 26 Jul 2013

Director William Friedkin follows up the extremely unnerving Bug with another stage play adaptation from Tracey Letts with much less success due to a frustrating final act. Here's the setup: trailer-trash father & son conspire to kill his loathesome ex-wife since the son learns his sister Dottie is sole beneficiary to a $50,000 insurance policy. To enable this payout they hire Killer Joe Cooper, cop by day and assassin the rest of the day.

I was into the story and the characters - a collection of lower wattage bulbs you are unlikely to find - but after 90 minutes, like impressionable Dottie I was looking for an escape plan. Outside of the exaggerating Emile Hirsch, the acting is very good. Matthew McConaughey really stood out as Killer Joe, projecting a palpable menace lingering just beneath his Southern manners and serenity, easily the best work I've seen from him making me sit up and take notice that he has skills previously unknown.

These are likely the most mixed feelings I have had when doling out a 2-star review, but sometimes with a screenplay this dark, actions this ugly, and characters this wretched, there comes a point where I've simply had enough. That final straw occurs during a lengthy dissection of what went wrong with their scheme, a scene that eventually made me uncomfortable more through the debasement of the actors than the situation itself. And the final insult is an ending rendered through a surge of violence that provides very little, if any, sense or closure.

While Killer Joe and Bug share plenty in common, the well has been poisoned on this return trip.