Review of Killer Joe (2012) by R T — 20 Feb 2013

A gleefully vile trailer-trash southern gothic that makes the filmography of Rob Zombie look tame by comparison. Letts screenplay isn't without it's merits (particularly in terms of dialogue), but it's arguably the film's Achilles heel.

It's very reliant on shock value, contains no likable characters, and the film's ambiguous ending seems to want to provoke discussion, but instead feels like a cop-out. That said, there are undeniably some really excellent factors about this film as well.

It's almost unbelievable that William Friedkin, a 76-year old pioneer of new Hollywood cinema, would have agreed to direct this NC-17 shlock-fest, but his involvement certainly gives the film serious girth.

Friedkin stages every scene nearly perfectly, and it's clear he wants more from this film than just abhorrent scenarios. What's more, I don't think there is any debate that Matthew McConaughey gives his best performance to date in this picture, and he hopefully will be getting more bad guy roles in the future.

It's not for the faint of heart, but torture porn fans might be able to use this film as a gateway drug towards finding more artfully crafted genre cinema.