Runtime:
103 minutes
Directed
by: William Friedkin
Starring:
Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church,
Gina Gershon
From:
Lionsgate
Here's
a movie I've heard quite a bit about for the past few months. It was
largely strong praise, especially for Matthew M as the title
character. I usually could not care less about him but I was still
intrigued. I also heard about a now infamous scene involving a piece
of fried chicken. That certainly got my attention. Finally, tonight I
was able to rent this from the local Blockbuster; I know, I know...
let me tell you what the plot is from reading the plot description on
the back of the Blu-Ray case.
“Killer
Joe” Cooper (Matthew M.) is a Dallas police detective who
moonlights as a hitman with the charm of a Southern gentleman. Chris
(Hirsch) hires Joe to kill his mother in order to pay off some debts.
Unable to pay for the service up front, Joe takes Chris's sister
Dottie (Temple) as a retainer until he can be paid.
I
tell you, this movie was released in theatres last year with an NC-17
rating (meaning it didn't exactly get a wide release; that same cut
is the unrated director's cut I watched) and it does earn that
rating. The whole movie is filled with scummy characters, the main
plot point is a girl who looks to be barely legal being prostituted
out to pay a debt, the violence you do see is quite graphic and
brutal, and oh yeah, the fried chicken scene may not sound so bad
when you read about it on paper, but actually watching it... greatly
disturbing due to the performances, how it was presented, and what
happened that resulted in the scene make it terrifying.
Really,
this movie definitely isn't for everyone. You have to enjoy perverse
movies, ones that are about as pitch black comic as you can get. I
did laugh often at this movie filled with a lot of unpleasant
characters. I heard it described as the Coens meet Rob Zombie and
while that may sound like something I would not like at all, I do
have to say that except for some things, I really did like this film.
I
won't get into most of the complaints as they are in the spoiler
territory but I did personally think that the Dottie character was
grating and annoying in a bad way. Note that due to wasn't outright
said but still implied well-enough for you to connect the dots,
something happened to her as a kid and since then she's been
“childlike”, or what I'd almost call “mentally handicapped.”
That is nothing against the performance; just the character. Even
with that, I still enjoyed this. As long as you have the stomach for
something real adult and characters yelling and cursing at each other
(at least one of them gets what they deserve, at least), then this is
well worth seeing from a legendary director who is still doing stuff
like this when he's in his 70's. I'll be back tomorrow night.
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