The Killer Inside Me (2010)

Frankly, I do not understand how come this movie has 6.1 rating among the viewers - this is what misled me as I opted to watch it. To me, the story is rather flat, most of the time the next event is pretty much predictable... Or, in some moments, it does not have a decent reasoning.The plot, in general, is pointless - it basically has no moral behind: you see some corruption, some sexual and psychological perversion and, as the result, crimes committed by police official. The end of the movie missed the intrigue and is just boring.The pace of the story-telling seems rather lazy and while at the beginning you still find it distinctive, but you believe (or hope) that it will get better and more interesting and there's going to be more of intensity as the story progresses. However, that does not happen.All in all, I feel pity for spending those couple of hours in vain.

If this film is marked by nothing else, it's poor quality. Poor acting. No, I don't find Casey's poor excuse for a Texas accent convincing. Nor do I find Kate's or Jessica's performances very convincing, not that it says much. I mean, what do you expect from those two? They're not exactly the type of actresses one would cast in a role which requires authenticity. But that doesn't even scratch the surface regarding how inaccurate the film is in terms of its appearance. Alba doesn't strike me as a convincing Texan during this time period. One may look to the goofs section to see what other errors were made during filming. I know this is a low-budget b-movie but the glaring inaccuracies cannot be overlooked. In terms of a b- movie, TKIM is okay. In terms of a feature film it practically sucks. Too much confusion. Like many other people, I thought the child Lou was in the back of a car with a boy. The shot was so quick and I didn't care to freeze frame it to determine whether it was a girl. I don't recall the film making it clear enough who the chick was who gave Lou lessons in BDSM, lucky devil. I bet every straight guy who watches this film wishes they had childhood experiences like that! I do!! Overall, there's nothing remarkable about TKIM except, perhaps, the excessive violence. I don't object to violence in film but I believe the Joyce beating went on too long and was entirely unrealistic. Even a little pussy like Casey Affleck would knock down a chick with a few punches ... or less. How can Joyce just stand there and get clobbered? It's unreal. The actors and director took no care to make the scene look realistic, but instead let it drag on too long, eventually showing Joyce's grotesquely disfigured face. I didn't like the book either. It's not that it's a terrible story per se, but the book is the textual equivalent of a b-movie. It's terribly written. Some have referred to the book and movie as "noir" but they lack any of the elements we would expect to see in noir, except, perhaps, the time period, and Lou Ford's deep cynicism.

On the surface, Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is a nice 29 year old sheriff's deputy in a Texas oil boom town Central City in the 1950s. He harasses a prostitute named Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba) and shows his sadistic side. He becomes obsessed with her. She wants to shakedown Elmer Conway (Jay R. Ferguson), the son of Chester (Ned Beatty) who built half of Central City. Chester gives him $10k to run her out of town. Lou has a different idea. Howard Hendricks (Simon Baker) investigates and seems suspicious of Lou. Lou had a foster brother named Mike who was killed 6 years ago working at a Conway construction. Young Mike and Lou had been involved in a murky incident with a young girl back in the day. Amy Stanton (Kate Stanton) is his girlfriend. Joe Rothman (Elias Koteas) is the union boss.This is a murky moody film noir from director Michael Winterbottom. I really like the style. It is a bit too confused. I think more on the story of young Lou would be helpful early on. Casey Affleck has the boyish looks which make his quiet psychopath character all the more effective. There are a lot of pieces and characters in this movie. It could be a little bit complicated to put the pieces together.

Killer Inside Me tells the story of Jake, a disturbed psychopath which suddenly starts to be a psychopath. The characters actions and their development are really obscure in this film, and so is the story. This is the kind of film that chooses to left too much to the viewer mind instead of explain, and this in fact prejudices the film. I also noted that a few things are clearly missing in the film but are fully explained in the book, as for example, a key element about the Lou's past, however i can see why this detail isn't explored deeply in the film. The missing content is way too disturbing, and probably was scrapped to avoid an inevitable NC-17 rating(my opinion).However, judging by the massive failure of the film in the box- office, with a mediocre 3 million dollars grossed(compared to the 13 millions spent in the production) , a more complete and possibly NC-17 film would turn this film in a actually good one. A missed opportunity, perhaps. The cinematography of this film is stylized, it don't follows the norm of use 'natural lightning' to make a film whose set in the 'old times'. It's an interesting choice, but natural light is more charming than the stylized one in this film. Although neither really reflects the dark atmosphere of this film.So yeah. It is watchable, unless if you don't have stomach to handle the really disturbing violence . 5.4/105.4/10