by Andy Gibbons

What is it?

Director Michael Winterbottom’s big screen take on pulp writer Jim Thompson’s classic novel about a small town Sheriff with a deep, dark secret.

Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is a lawman in the West Texas town of Central City where a personal vendetta starts to leave a body count and however crafty Lou may think he is, those around him are starting to sense that all may not be right with the unassuming Sheriff.

What’s good?

Affleck gives a career best performance as the chilling psycho with a penchant for opera and revenge while Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson more than hold up their ends as the two women in his life – Alba especially catches the eye as a hooker who you sense Lou has real feelings for but her ability to play a key part in his master plan eventually outweighs her allure. Production designers Rob Simons and Mark Tildesley have created a setting full of ‘50s Texas charm while you can almost feel the dry summer heat catching in your throat as the net inevitably closes in on Lou.

What’s bad?

This is one of those films which is going to split audiences right down the middle and it’s all down to one issue – the vicious attacks Affleck’s character launches on Alba and Hudson. There’s no doubt that they are incredibly shocking and hard to watch (I thought one woman was going to walk out of the screening I was in) and had I not known they were coming, they would probably of affected me even more than they did. But in context they do perfectly illustrate the brutally sociopathic side of Lou’s nature.

So basically…..

If you can stomach the scenes everyone will be talking about, there’s a lot to like about The Killer Inside Me and its pulp roots. And it further proves that as a filmmaker Winterbottom is still looking for challenges – you certainly can’t accuse him of ever making the same movie twice.

3/5

The Killer Inside Me is released on June 4th 2010.