- Written and directed by Michael Winterbottom
- Starring Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson & Ned Beatty
- Runtime: 108 mins
- Classification: MA15+
WHEN a new Michael Winterbottom film hits the screen, it’s always a surprise, something different. As a challenging filmmaker, his adventures into filmmaking are never the same. His latest challenge is The Killer Inside Me, not a pretty story but one which psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health specialists and experts will rush to see and write about. Set in West Texas in the 1950s, it’s a story which takes a deep look into the psyche of a killer who is calm and cool on the outside and brutal on the inside. Winterbottom’s attention to detail perfectly captures the times, the people, the furniture and the prevailing attitudes.
Be warned there are some very disturbing and violent scenes in this film. But that doesn’t detract from the brilliance of the film. So well crafted, its pace, the authenticity of it and the attention to detail. And for Winterbottom’s ability to tell a first person story in all its reality, without shying away from the truth.
Based on Jim Thompson’s short pop novel of the same name. Winterbottom and he and his co-writer John Curran (director and producer of The Painted Veil (2006)), probably had little to do, other than fill out the story for the book’s adaptation to the screen. Legionary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick said of Thompson’s book: “Probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered.” He probably had ideas of making the film himself.
Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is a handsome, charming and unassuming small town deputy sheriff deputy who has a memory and a few problems. As a child he was abused, and his attitude to women is contradictory and confused. He’s fallen in love with Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba), a prostitute who lives on the outside of town. Small towns generally have a prominent rich citizen who basically runs the town. In this small oil field town the man who matters is Chester Conway (Ned Beatty). He runs a construction company, which keeps the citizens employed. Joyce is servicing Chester and just discovered by him, also his son Elmer. Chester wants Joyce out of town before Elmer discovers his father is also be serviced by Joyce. Chester offers Lou a $10,000 bribe to get Joyce out of town, he’s already tried to bribe the sheriff Bob Maples, Lou’s boss, but he wouldn’t respond.
Lou wants the $10,000 (unknown to him, in market notes) and works a dastardly plan to get it. After making love to Joyce one night he beats her up and sets a trap for Elmer to arrive and see her all beaten up and covered in blood. When Elmer arrives and sees Joyce, Lou shoots him dead and places the gun in Joyce’s hand, making it look like Elmer beat up Joyce and she shot him in self defence.
Joyce is taken to hospital not expected to live, and Bob Maples brings in Howard Hendricks (Simon Baker) to solve the crime. Questioning Lou, Howard is suspicious, but when Johnnie the son of the local bar owner, who works part time at the local petrol station, is discovered with one of the marked banknotes. He’s arrested he arrested and put into a cell.
Johnnie sees Lou as a friend and trusts him to own up about giving him the banknote, but Lou has other plans. He visits Johnnie in his cell and after assuring him he’ll tell all and get Johnnie off the hook. He ensures Johnnie will not leave the cell alive. As Lou leaves the cell the guard asks if Lou had any trouble with Johnnie, “no trouble at all,” he says. Next morning Johnnie is found hanged in his cell.
Lou’s next door neighbour Amy Stanton (Kate Hudson) is passionately in love with Lou but is frightened to marry him, she’s suspicious and doesn’t trust him. Although she loves him and they often have sex together. When a casual worker whom Lou insulted and burnt his hand with a cigar, one night after he killed Elmer, turns up at Lou’s house and demands payment for his injuries which have prevented him from working. Lou sets up a trap to get rid of him and Amy, the same way he did with Joyce and Elmer.
Now Lou needs to get the local construction union man, who knows too much out of his hair. Bob Maples having committed suicide (we’re never told why), Howard is now even more convinced Lou is a killer in more ways than one, but Lou plays his cards straight, and with no actual proof Howard can do nothing.
Finally Howard comes up with a witness Lou never expected to see again, but Lou has a master plan that will finalise all of his problems for ever.
