The Killer Inside Me chokes the life out of Jim Thompson's sordid pulp masterpiece
by Jim Ridley @countrylifeblog
After dark, my sweet: Jessica Alba and Casey Affleck before the onslaught of The Killer Inside Me
Filmmakers are drawn to Jim Thompson's pitiless crime novels like flies to No-Pest Strip, and yet most movie versions end up spilling his rotgut with shaky hands. The latest is Michael Winterbottom's unconscionably well-upholstered filming of one of Thompson's meanest books: the grim tale of a 1950s small-town lawman — demon savant Lou Ford — whose outward dullness is a predator's hunting blind.
The movie looks great on paper, with Casey Affleck well-cast as Ford and surrounded with smartly chosen players: Kate Hudson, Ned Beatty. But Affleck's pinched performance, though true to character, invites neither curiosity nor horror, and habitual genre dabbler Winterbottom directs like a tourist shooting the lower depths from a Gray Line bus. Even in studious episodes of heavy, protracted violence (like hooker Jessica Alba's Irreversible beatdown), he's never breathing the same sick air as Thompson's characters.
Like Ford, the movie's boring and its company starts to feel like torture. The closest Winterbottom gets to Thompson's bilious humor is a cheery tune from Ford's real-world comrade in psychosis, Western-swing woman killer Spade Cooley. (Now playing at The Belcourt)
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