THE KILLER INSIDE ME (2010) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Michael Winterbottom
Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba,
Ned Beatty, Elias Koteas, Tom Bower,
Simon Baker, Bill Pullman, Caitlin Turner
With his boyish look and high-pitched drawl, Casey Affleck would seem to be an unlikely candidate for the Movie Psycho Hall of Fame. And yet in "The Killer Inside Me", there he is, playing an outwardly personable small-town deputy named Lou Ford, just the kind of guy you'd trust to enforce the law and maybe even date your daughter, right up to the point where he starts beating up women and torturing drunks and shaking down witnesses and killing them. In fact, Lou's been committing atrocities, covering them up and framing others for his crimes since childhood, and he's always gotten away with it, till now. Jessica Alba plays a prostitute Lou hooks up with. Ned Beatty's a contractor with a hand in all the local corruption. Kate Hudson is Lou's girlfriend. Elias Koteas plays a union boss. In flashbacks, Caitlin Turner plays Lou's mother, and you really don't want to know what went on between Lou and his mother. Or maybe you do. If the key to Lou's present is his past, he didn't become this fucked-up overnight. It goes way back. The story comes from a book by Jim Thompson. The style is pure pulp fiction. The whole thing could make you feel like taking a bath. But what'll really creep you out, what could make you never trust a kid with a badge and a gun again, is this character Lou Ford. Played with calculating ease and cold, dead eyes by Casey Affleck.
