Rated NC-17 for graphic violence, strong sexual imagery, strong language and drug use

By James Miller
BEACON COLUMNIST

posted Aug 31, 2012 - 2:49:05pm

With Killer Joe, director William Friedkin (The French Connection, Exorcist) partners with Pulitzer-winning playwright Tracy Letts to adapt Letts’ earliest play for the screen. That collaboration plays to the uninitiated like a production of The Glass Menagerie reimagined by David Lynch.

Killer Joe is black comedy at its least sentimental, artfully shot and stylishly superficial. Its volatile caricatures thrash about but go nowhere, do not grow, but wilt. We’d be let off easy were it a satire, but this twisted romp punches straight ahead, dead set on abyss.

Out a serious load of cash and in debt to some violent types, twenty-something Chris (Emile Hirsch) bursts into his father Ansel’s (Thomas Haden Church) trailer one stormy night with a half-baked plan to murder his mother for her insurance money. After some polite resistance, Ansel agrees to help Chris seek out a local hit man nicknamed Killer Joe (Matthew McConaughey) to do the deed. The pair hit a roadblock when they haven’t got the money to pay Joe, but the killer takes a shine to Chris’s never-been-kissed younger sister Dottie (Juno Temple) and agrees to take her as a loan in advance of the cash. Violence, brutality and surrealism ensue.

Killer Joe’s small cast impresses. McConaughey waxes sympathetic with his gentlemanly if robotic delivery. His forcefulness grows from unsettling as to induce nervous laughter unto something sinister, chaotic and terrifying. He sells the film. Hirsh counterbalances that deliberateness with Chris, whose explosive, stubborn nature fumbles for his own naïveté. As stepmom Sharla, Gina Gershon provides the most nearly human character; she’s crass and manipulative, but capable of pain and humiliation. By contrast, Temple’s Dottie is otherworldly, her mental illness a taboo of the family’s ongoing drama. And centric to these extremes, Church’s Ansel anchors the film. His unwillingness to act, his curt replies, stone-faced and all, become the sincerest of reactions. Faced with such madness, there is no best response. The viewer immediately understands that paralysis.

Oftentimes dark comedies summon dramatic power from the emptiness that they leave an audience feeling as the credits roll. We’re left to mull it all over abstractly. While Killer Joe at times feels devoid of emotion, the production is not stark like so many a grim tale, but over-saturated. The lighting is vibrant, the sounds simple but distinct. Even the plot brims with possible outcomes, unfulfilled potentials. Save Joe, the key characters are bundles of contradictory impulses, wish-washy or passive/aggressive.

Letts torments his audience. Those who cling to a hope that this twisted tale could turn out happy or satisfying meet repeated dead ends. Depraved as the character may be, Chris acts as near to a moral compass as his family has. He regrets past actions, he dotes on his sister and stands up for his beliefs. He’s the only one who overcomes his own fear. But he is incapable of succeeding. By contrast, Joe has power over people, and he gets off on that power; it’s what draws him to a preternaturally innocent and vulnerable Dottie. Either we’re left to fear that some people are so far gone as to be irredeemable, or we’re to feed lovingly on the brutality and giggle sadistically at this circus of sinners being punished for their transgressions. Letts leaves us either pointedly disaffected or at rest to confront our own inhumanity.

Stars & Popcorn grade: 4 stars, 2 popcorn.

— Miller is a writer and editor at Stars & Popcorn. He has a master's degree in Performance Studies and Criticism from New York University and a dry sense of humor.

Sponsored by Liebe Entertainment Group, Marketplace 8. Click here to see showtimes for Killer Joe

James M. Miller — James M. Miller is a writer and editor at Stars and Popcorn. His love of film is mostly Platonic, occasionally phenomenological. He has a master's degree in Performance Studies & Criticism from New York University and a dry sense of humor.

— info@beacononlinenews.com

---

Comment on this article

Commenting is closed for this article.

If you would like to contribute a letter to the editor, please click here.

---

Did you find this story interesting or informative? Subscribe to The West Volusia Beacon to read more stories by James Miller, along with others from our award-winning writers. Subscribe now!