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Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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The Killer Inside Me (Film)

by Julian Shaw | August 23, 2010 16:22 | Edited August 24, 2010 12:50

Driven by strong performances and harrowing sequences, the film falls short of being utterly compelling.

Riffing from Jim Thompson's transfixing 1952 crime novel of the same name, British director Michael Winterbottom succeeds in serving up a pulpy and controversial adaptation that will cleave audiences down the middle.

 

This material already made its way to the big screen in a 1976 chiller directed by Burt Kennedy, but Winterbottom's painfully direct account of a Texan killer, sheltered by his own professional fealty to the law, is quite far removed from that incarnation. Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is a silver-tongued opera enthusiast adored by girlfriend Amy Stanton (Kate Hudson). But Ford - a serial womaniser - has his head snapped sideways by call girl Joyce Lakeland (the surprisingly solid Jessica Alba), which leads to a deadly dalliance.

 

Audiences will wince at the brutality on display here, but then we shouldn't have come to expect anything less from Winterbottom, who after all, depicted real sex in his episodic concert flick 9 Songs. The viciousness that forms the film's unmistakable centrepiece, however, should represent a legitimate talking point and not a turn-off for thoughtful cinemagoers. It takes courage to make on-screen violence that is genuinely wounding rather than titillating, and the conversation-sparking scene here hurts like Irreversible's harrowing keystone sequences.

 

For all its sordid directness, The Killer Inside Me feels a little dry when the crimson isn't flowing. Like some of his other lower budget works, Winterbottom's style can feel minimal bordering on bereft. Affleck makes the role his own though, while the ladies in support are well and truly up to the task, but there is a missing heartbeat that was felt less keenly in the written word. The Killer Inside Me ultimately registers as a startling curio that you may gasp at now but forget later.