Director: William Friedkin
Writer: Tracy Letts
Starring: Mathew McConaughey,
Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple
Rated: NC-17 (strong and
disturbing violence, sexuality, graphic nudity, drug use, language)
Knowing that Killer Joe was directed by the same guy
who brought us The Exorcist, you
really have no excuse for being shocked at how blatantly disturbing this movie
is.
Killer Joe is the story of a very poor family in Texas consisting of
twenty-two year old drug dealer Chris (Emile Hirsch), his pushover of a father
Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), hard ass stepmother Sharla (Gina Gershon), and
painfully innocent and naïve younger sister Dottie (Juno Temple). Due to
Chris’s mistakes, he discovers that he owes a sizeable amount of money to this
drug lord (I guess he’s a drug lord…) which sucks seeing as he – and his family
– are practically broke. Hoping not
to die, however, Chris discovers that his mother, who we are to understand
severely mistreated him as a child and who nobody seems to like, is worth fifty
thousand dollars through an insurance policy, and…you guessed it, comes up with
the brilliant idea of murdering her in hopes of collecting the money. How does
he do it? By hiring the notorious Killer Joe, a detective by day and contract
killer by night. Sound screwed up? It is.
So when this movie ended I
honestly had no idea how I felt. I had put off watching it for a while due to
what I had heard about it which was, simply, that it was incredibly disturbing.
And boy was it disturbing…yet somehow really good. I think my main issue was
that it was advertised as a dark comedy, a genre I absolutely love, but I literally
laughed once. While it’s freaky enough to think that there’s someone out there who
actually thought this stuff up, it’s even weirder, in my opinion, that many
people found it funny. Of course we’re all entitled to our own opinions but I
just can’t see how sexual harassment, brutal violence, or sexually and
emotionally manipulating innocent characters is funny. Putting that aside,
though, I must admit this film is an absolute knockout.
Most people seem to avoid
this movie because of Mathew McConaughey and to be honest, I understand where
they’re coming from. I mean do you remember him in the early 2000s? (In case
you don’t know, he basically managed to star in the most predictable and
clichéd chick flicks EVER and was known for pretty much portraying the same
type of character every single time). If that’s what you’re concerned about, do
not worry. His performance was absolutely insane and by that I mean so crazy
good that I didn’t even see McConaughey;
instead I was introduced to a sick, crazy and just plain twisted man who
happened to look exactly like him.
Aside from McConaughey the
other members of the cast were brilliant as well. As I’ve no doubt mentioned in
previous reviews, I really appreciate
it when actors and actresses are able to pull off a character to the point
where I believe that they are real. Seriously, the movie doesn’t even have to
be good; as long as I buy and/or care about the characters, I will most likely not
be able to hate on it. By the end of Killer
Joe I literally felt as if I personally knew the characters. While the plot
was weirdly exaggerated, the characters were so genuine that even amongst the
strangeness of what was happening around them, I became oddly attached to them
and when I saw bad things happen to them, I found myself on the verge of
screaming at the screen (note: that does not normally happen).
Aside from characters and
plot, I noticed that Friedkin played with some very clever techniques that helped
to subtly develop the characters. For example there is a dog in the trailer
park the family lives in named T-Bone who, you’d think, barks throughout the
movie just because he barks a lot, but
when you start to pay more attention to him and exactly when he barks it’s only
when Chris is around. Not the most original or creative idea, but I kind of
like how it gives the audience an idea of who the weak characters are and who
the intimidating ones are.
Another little thing I
noticed was during a scene I definitely won’t spoil as it’s pretty important.
As I said, Dottie is the youngest and most innocent character in the movie and
Joe, obviously, isn’t. Therefore, we’re surprised when we find how patient Joe
is with her. There is this kind of trust we build for him in terms of his
relationship with Dottie, but in this specific scene, he begins to lose that
patience a tad and we are given the smallest hint at this as the camera, while
centered on his face, goes slightly in and out of focus. It happens so fast
that I had to rewind to make sure it had
actually happened, but after realizing that it did, I figured that it was most
likely done on purpose and served as a clever little way to hint at his
unbalanced temperament.
Other than these two
techniques there are definitely more, but I think they’re probably more
effective when discovered while watching the movie, so the last thing I want to
point out that I really thought added to the movie was the sound. Though there
is music, there are many moments in the film in which very raw sounds are used
that, for me, added extreme suspense. In a scene where Chris is hiding from the
drug dealers he owes the money to, instead of music we are given the crackling
sound of the tires of their motorcycles creeping up on him, and while I was
visually aware of everything that was happening, I still found myself quite
tense.
Alright, well that’s just
about all I have to say about this one. I definitely
recommend it, though not to those with a weak stomach. There are some mighty troubling
scenes that I myself did not enjoy watching, one of which involved chicken, so
don’t make the mistake I did and eat a grilled chicken sandwich before seeing
the movie.
