Review of The Killer Inside Me (2010) by David F — 26 Nov 2010

His voice, high but coarse, indicates guileless innocence. Kate Hudsonâ(TM)s his kinky girlfriend. He has the esteem of his alcoholic boss, Sheriff Maples. Heâ(TM)s staunchly polite. One day, Maples gives him a task: Go chat with call girl Jessica Alba. Influential local developer Ned Beattyâ(TM)s worried about her effect on his son. So our hero drops by, exchanges words and soon the two of them are straight away having violent sex. Why? This is inherently B-movie exploitation material, where she may be a hooker with other fellas but she finds you appealing for real. Feminine psychology is not pulp fictionâ(TM)s forte. Psychologyâ(TM)s vague overall, anchored in reductive, fragmented psychoanalytic ideas. With Lou Ford, for instance, weâ(TM)re given disjointed peeps at childhood sexual abuse. Not the kind weâ(TM)ve seen before: His mother liked Lou to hit her.

To be sure, Lou appears to magnetize masochistic women. The film tries to justify this no more than it does Louâ(TM)s own personality. The best clarification might be: When you seek this kind of material, these are the kinds of proceedings thatâ(TM)ll be depicted. In writing, the center is the perspective. In the film, we watch the brutality occurring, and the first instance it comes as a major kick, as weâ(TM)re not at all anticipating it.

Not from Lou Ford, anyhow. Casey Affleck, a remarkable and unique actor, is so persuasive with his childlike, virtually adorable veneer that the movie prepares us to assume heâ(TM)ll be cracking a case, not triggering one. He upholds that veneer despite the most forceful challenges, not only from his own cruelty, but from two people with exceptional grounds to doubt him: labor leader Elias Koteas and county attorney Simon Baker. When Lou in fact comes clean to a kid who looks up to him, even what occurs then doesnâ(TM)t move him.

This storyâ(TM)s set in early 1950s west Texas. Lou, narrating his own account, is a deputy sheriff in a rustic town. He lives alone in his childhood home, where he plays classical piano, reads books from his fatherâ(TM)s library, plays opera records. Heâ(TM)s existing on a different plane of consciousness from the rest of his bucolic community.

Iâ(TM)ve a high regard for Affleck as an actor since heâ(TM)s been allowed to shine in increasingly more complex roles in beautifully rendered passion projects, including one by his older brother. But as Deputy Ford in The Killer Inside Me, heâ(TM)s not only giving us one of the most unique psychopaths in the cinema (one whoâ(TM)s taken decades to bring to the screen as faithfully and unflinchingly as it is here), itâ(TM)s this multifarious and densely volatile characterization that Winterbottom and adapter John Curran (whose own directorial feature Stone may be the best film Iâ(TM)ve seen release this year) are relying upon for the nuanced effect of the storyâ(TM)s unraveling. As a fearless, brass-balled collaborative trifecta, they donâ(TM)t let on any more than what must be before each brutalizing revelation. And conversely, what weâ(TM)re made to sense in this character serves as suspense during these fierce pay-offs.

Itâ(TM)s a challenging trick for an actor to exude all behavior and manner from a cavernous inner life while portraying a callously empty character. While this makes change or progress significantly difficult, the fact that for Lou thereâ(TM)s nobody home is the point because heâ(TM)s a sociopath, devoid of general human feeling. The flaw is that because thatâ(TM)s what he is, hearkening back to his twisted childhood, alluding to various other possible explanations of his behavior muddles this thread.

The more substantial and meaningful angle is that the Southern hospitality-flavored code of community politeness and sense of propriety are both what repress and protect Lou. This seems to be the thematic glue until the film begins to meander through a series of uninflected scenes of Lou coolly shucking curveballs from suspicious folks.

That aside, the filmâ(TM)s style awed me for a good portion of it, its dead-on depiction of film noir in the vintage sense, stark light-and-shadow contrasts, shifty-eyed glances, a lonesome town, the initial set-up of the plot. There are even cutaways to seemingly arbitrary establishing shots much like the old-school voyeuristic techniques of studio-era masters, although their capriciousness serves more to aggravate than stimulate. Most significantly, perhaps, the women all personify dime-store paperback covers, which I wonâ(TM)t deny does little to repel the charges against this film for being cruelly misogynistic. But in the unabashedly noir world of Louâ(TM)s morale, these are just the ingenues who befit the enterprise.

Whereas Louâ(TM)s prey includes both sexes, itâ(TM)s his sadistic, prolonged beatings of female characters that have made this unflinching piece divisive. Winterbottom presents these onslaughts in unwavering, gazing depth, a choice some deem gratuitous and degrading. By rights, the brutalityâ(TM)s intermittent, which just makes it more numbing. The filmâ(TM)s detractors, I suppose, have made the enduring misstep of confounding subject matter for intention. Itâ(TM)s about time we surrendered our reliance on box office, the Academy, and critics as gauges of value. We have to see the films for ourselves.

What I saw was a meditative thriller which will tire some with its dawdling pacing, while revolting others with its flickers of shocking cruelty. However for the less delicate among us, Winterbottomâ(TM)s incendiary film is a smart, enthralling modern incarnation of classic noir elements, playing upon them in ways not constrained as they were in the genreâ(TM)s heyday, tackling murky human subjects without the safety net of moral codes or Hays codes.