Review of The Killer Inside Me (2010) by Jonathan M — 29 Oct 2010

Casey Affleck pretty much sews up his ownership of aloof and dangerous characters with this role. He plays creepy niceness almost too well. Cast as a West Texas sheriff who everyone thinks is golden, Affleck really does a supreme job as man who spirals into a demon-like descent and reveals what kind of man he really is.

The film is relatively well-written and the actors deliver some good dialogue but there are some things missing. The first 3/4 of the film are perfect in setup and delivery. It's the last quarter that sort of just speeds up as if they needed to meet a time deadline and then it ends with a huge surprise; an abrupt one at that.

But immediately prior that the end scene, it is just a jumbled mess of trying to clean up loose ends and come to a conclusion. It didn't do the movie justice, especially for how well done the majority of the movie is.

Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba do admirably well as the women who love their men, no matter what; and that allowance goes pretty far. The scenes between Elias Koteas and Affleck are some of the best, except the movie falls down with no real closure with their two characters.

Simon Baker is strong at first, then the film somewhat leads his character into obliviousness. And Bill Pullman didn't need to be in this film; his role was part of that speed train ending. All in all though, this is a good movie and was enjoyable to watch, even with the graphic abuse scenes; that was one area that director Michael Winterbottom hit the mark, literally.