Review of The Killer Inside Me (2010) by Trevor K — 14 Aug 2014

I'm not sure whether the hype for this film was a little misleading or whether I was just reading something into it but I thought this was going to a surreal journey into the killers mind, a glimpse into the void, but instead it played out like a David Lynch or Coen Bros film with all the quirks taken out.

Casey Affleck plays Lou Ford, a small town, hicksville sherrif where everybody says "yes ma'am, no ma'am, I'm sorry I just crushed your larynx ma'am". He's asked to investigate a troublesome prostitute named Joyce, played by Jessica Alba, which not unsurprisingly leads to Joyce chewing some pillow while Lou pounds away at her honey hued heiney. Before they get down to it though they indulge in a little role-playing, with Lou playing Sonny to Joyce's Cher,which she seems to take remarkably well.

They punch, they fuck, they fall in love and before long a plot is hatched to relieve the local Big Man on Campus (Ned Beatty) and his simple minded son of a large pile of cash. Unbeknownst to Joyce Lou alters a couple of vital details of the plan and before you know it things get very messy. Not to mention punchy.

Affleck is as good as advertised in this, though I think the nails down blackboard voice and the look of a feral choirboy, really lends itself to a role like this. Alba is decent enough, but she never really gives the role the depth it deserves and the film suffers because of it. She's a pert, pretty punchbag who loves Ford unreservedly and without question. You're supposed to believe she falls head over heels in love with Ford from the moment his fist first makes contact with her face, suggesting some serious submissive fantasy or desire, but after the first day their relationship, and the sex in it, is not really any different than any other.

Kate Hudson plays Amy, Ford's girlfriend, and to some extent steals the show - she's sexy, but subtly so. She perfectly encapsulates what Jerry Hall said every Southern lady should be - "a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom". If the film wanted explore further the differences between the public and private persona and whether what really drives us is our latent desires then she would have been a good place to start. Unfortunately she's never really afforded that status and is very much a supporting character.

The rest of the supporting cast do a fine job too - Ned Beatty, Elias Koteas, The Mentalist, Bill Pullman, but the material they're working with is somewhat slight - it's just an old fashioned, pulp fiction, crime thriller. It's beautifully shot however and moves along at a wonderfully languid pace, all of which adds to the authentic period feel of the piece. On top of that it's got the best opening credits I've seen in some time and a big firey ending, which I'm always a sucker for.