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If you've followed the history of this film, then you know it was twenty years in the making. The producers who optioned the rights were on a veritable quest. At one point, Val Kilmer was slated to act, Sean Penn, to direct.

Eventually, many Thompson fans consigned the project to limbo, not knowing how passionate the parties involved actually were. (Chris Hanley is the same producer who delivered This World, Then the Fireworks -- one of the most faithful and unapologetic Thompson adaptations.) Having seen Winterbottom's final cut, I'm glad the producers took their time. The screenplay writer and director have made a film so uncompromisingly faithful to Thompson's novel that a few audience members will usually leave the theater during the most graphic scenes.

Make no mistake: This movie is more grisly than anything by Sam Peckinpah, and the subject is as misogynistic as that of Straw Dogs (though it's the character, not the director, who hates women in this case). If you're a person who can't watch or sanction scenes in which women are brutalized, then this is a film to avoid.

If not, then you're ready to see the book represented in its pulpy essence, with excesses and virtues on display.

Psychopathic sheriff Lou Ford is equal parts self-destructive sadist, con man and facade. For him, excessive politeness and long-windedness are forms of veiled hostility. Brutal sarcasm is delivered in a good-natured everyman way. Everything Ford says is double entendre, the punchline, only apparent to him. He ushers people to their doom in the same tone he might use to offer them a drink.

Other film adaptations, from Tavernier's Coup de Torchon to the 70s version of Killer, have missed Ford's quintessentially Southern hostility. Those French and So Cal readings failed to recognize the specific way in which Thompson, himself a Texan, turns the naive good-natured American stereotype on its head. Winterbottom understands it and shows it, as does his lead.

The actor who plays Ford is famous but not yet so ubiquitous that his celebrity obscures the power of Ford's character. Since character carries an unusual amount of weight in Thompson stories, Casey Afflick was a perfect choice: Likable and chameleonic, with an admirable range and a delivery so spent and inviting it will remind you of Bill Clinton's. You don't just enjoy this portrayal of Ford because he's an interesting villain. You actually sympathize with the character's attempts to regain self-control.

When I read a reviewer's description of Ford listening to classical music and reading Freud, I groaned. I thought he'd been reduced to another Hannibal Lecter. The psychopath who resembles a James Bond nemesis and reveals his intelligence by listening to classical music and quoting Nietzsche is an '80s cliché.

Not to worry: Affleck's Ford never talks about culture and he never air-conducts.

From the period-specific tone to the apparent humility and social restraint of the killer -- which made readers sympathize with him even after he committed acts that seemed designed to justify the death penalty -- this film is to Thompson what Wynton Marsalis is to Miles Davis: Reverent to the point of sacrificing personality, but giving back everything in terms of performance, style and formal correctness. The attention to form was particularly appreciated: Having read the book twice, I knew what was coming and still enjoyed the ending.

Casey Affleck (Ben Affleck's younger brother) delivers a stunning performance as a psychopathic deputy sheriff; when his charming and well mannered guy appearance disappears the audience's shown violence both "ordinary" and of sexual kind. There's absolutely nothing voyeuristic in these scenes, difficult to see though they might be, on the contrary they're the moments where the movie really gets to make an impact on the viewers. The narrative's very gripping and Winterbottom's story manages to strongly connect on an emotional level. All the characters appear to have a "proximity" to the audience. On the whole the film always makes a strong impact and keeps the noir atmosphere required, furthermore its ability to shock is the key for being truthful and compelling.

This film was disturbing as hell! It'll make anybody who has a soul feel sick and the ending will make you mad for it's implausibility.

I wish I had never saw it.

Ironically, I picked this over the documentary 'Armadillo' about the war in Afghanistan, because I didn't feel like watching a truly frightening and disturbing movie that night. I felt like watching something 'fictionally scary'. It seems I should have gone for the war documentary instead, this movie had me wrecked emotionally for days. The story kind of clings, you have to deal with it, but it's complex and hard. It's a challenging movie.

What keeps riddling me about this movie, is how on earth did anyone manage to make me feel sympathetic towards the main character, who's an occasionally psychotic, cynical and brutal sadist? Even when he loses his temper completely with consequences beyond anything you thought you would ever watch on the big screen, you find yourself on his side.

Now, it's not an uncommon ambition for a director to construct 'bad' characters with compelling sides that awaken your sympathy, but this is beyond my comprehension. He's not a character you feel sorry for, he's not playing the victim anywhere, he's a sadist out of control. He plans things carefully to serve his own purposes and explodes in violence. Still, you want him to make it. You are left for hours thinking and discussing why on earth you found yourself supporting this character. Why would anybody?!? I don't know how this was done, it is, as I said, disturbing.

I was thinking about this for days, I'm still thinking about it. There are many story lines to examine in retrospect, there's his childhood, the violence, the biblical figures and references, the forbidden sexual urges, the gender dynamics of the time and how Hudson and Albas characters are both in their own way revolting them. Casey Affleck gives a scarily brilliant performance, and Kate Hudson deserves compliments on her fantastic performance as the classical 'good girl of good family' of the 1950s who hides both a great social insight and a dark side.

The Killer Inside Me is a great conversation starter, my boyfriend and I discussed this for hours (and we are far from an intellectual movie-discussing couple). Americans should be warned though, this is without a doubt one of the most graphical violent Hollywood productions I have ever seen.

I have to be honest and say that by the time this was over, I had stopped caring. As a matter of fact, by about a half hour in I had stopped caring. The story is convoluted, the writing is poor, the pacing is dreadful and the characters are a mish mash of unlikable and unmemorable people, none of whom (except for the 2 women, played by Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba, who end up as unwitting victims of the psychotic, BDSM loving Lou Ford) you really care about. After not really caring about either most of this movie or most of the characters, you're treated to a completely silly ending in which Lou concocts a plan to take out himself and pretty much everybody else by soaking his house with gasoline and other chemicals while waiting for the police to show up, the interesting thing being that once the police show up they seem to spend an awfully long time in the house - without noticing the smell of gasoline and other chemicals! (Meanwhile, if I get just a couple of drops of gasoline on my fingers in a gas station it overwhelms me!)

The only thing that really made this movie worth watching was Casey Affleck as the aforementioned Lou Ford. He was actually pretty good in delivering a very low key, quiet spoken performance; one that was so low key and so quiet spoken (even though we know the character has a very dark side almost from the beginning) that he made the character far more effectively creepy than he otherwise would have been. But beyond Affleck's performance I can't say that there was very much that would be of any great appeal. (3/10)

"The trouble of growing up in a small town is everybody thinks they know who you are."

I was initially interested in The Killer Inside Me because I'm a fan of both Casey Affleck and Jessica Alba, but I soon became even more intrigued by what I was reading in the early reviews about how brutal it is. And it is brutal. I don't mean the over the top, fanciful gore-drenched brutality of a movie like Saw, I mean the kind of realistic, stomach- churning violence that isn't easy to watch. This movie is definitely not for everyone, as a result. I just thought I'd put that disclaimer out there.

The story is about a 29 year-old sheriff deputy named Lou Ford who leads a double life. He's a sadistic, violent, disturbed man who hides his true nature under the gentlemanly, courteous reputation he has amongst the denizens of the Texas town he's lived in since he was born. An encounter with a local prostitute triggers the violent urges in him that have been somewhat buried, and a cascade of murders upon murders result as he tries to cover his tracks and avoid the scrutiny of a district attorney who is deeply suspicious of him. 

I though Affleck was great in this. The guy is just a natural actor, and he pulls off both the unnerving psychopath and small town local aspects of the character. I wanted Ford to get caught for his utterly despicable actions, yet I still found myself feeling anxious whenever he seemed in danger of being found out. If that's not a compliment of Casey's performance, I don't know what could be. Alba was good in her somewhat limited role, and it was a pretty risk choice for her to tackle a part like this where so much violence was directed at her character. Kate Hudson also does well in a role that very different from much of her recent work, and Simon Baker rounds out the main cast with a solid performance as the district attorney.

I was drawn into this movie from the opening credits. If you're not put off by the violence and the sex (often mixed together), The Killer Inside Me is well worth watching. I thought the ending wasn't pulled off as well as the rest of the film was, but that's really my only complaint. Recommended.

Casey A. is a 50s Sheriff's Deputy in small-town Texas. He is a sadistic train wreck who even though he finds himself in the possession of not one but two luscious female bottoms to paddle with his belt he still has to kill everyone in sight. I may be wrong about that but it started to seem he was going to be of the "kill em all and let god sort em out" school. Even so this movie is marvelous. We get a nice little bit of back story explaining his predilections but to me it's the reactions of those around him that make the movie and not his back story. This is a layered, nuanced tale with many lovely ingredients, not the least of which is this newish, noirish serial killer type. The music is of the rockabilly, C&W, operatic type: it does wonders.

They read books don't they?

I have a little habit on this site especially when I am unfamiliar with a films content, its director or writer. I look at the IMDb viewer reviews, starting by filtering them with the "hated it" box checked. If people have a good solid reason for hating a film or disliking it, a reason of substance, then I read 1 or 2 of "the bests" but consider twice whether I want to watch it. In the case of this film, I'd already seen it. I looked at the viewer reviews because it was an adaptation of a Jim Thompson novel and I wanted to see how people reacted. Especially because I was surprised, having seen it, by the films low rating.

For those of you who know nothing of Thompson's work I direct you to the Wikipedia article on him. In it, Steven King (who I assume most people on this site know as he wrote the IMDb rated #1 film of all time, "The Shawshank Redemption") said he "most" admired Thompson specifically for three lets... "he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it".

Now I know that the ratings here can be a little skewed. For example, is Inception really the 6th greatest film ever made. Is "Sin City" a better movie than say "Jaws", "Blade Runner" or "The Wizard of Oz" or any number of extraordinary foreign entry's. In the IMDb world virtually every episode of every TV show ever made is always ranked higher than any feature. Look at Jessica Alba's work sorted by rating... Could every episode of Dark Angel have really been that good? Maybe it just means that IMDb viewers prefer short form fiction to the long form. Or as the editor of New York Magazine is quoted to have addressed his staff, "I don't want anything in this rag I can't read in one good crap".

Its a foregone conclusion that lot of people who frequent IMDb spend a good portion of their time being visually entertained and they might not have enough time left to peruse the printed work as much as they aught; Maybe not even enough time to search out some intelligent criticism before they make their viewing choices. But the number of 1 star, I hated it, reviews for this film defy all reason. Sure the subject matter is inherently offensive. But as Andrew O'Hehir said in his Salon.com review, to hate this faithful delivery of Jim Thompson's book, or to complain that "The Killer Inside Me" is full of misogynistic violence is a little like reading "Moby-Dick" and objecting to all the stuff about whaling.

Maybe if people read a little about a film before they invest their 2 bucks and 2 hours they could avoid subjecting themselves to films they won't like and spare us all their trenchant voicing of how they hated London because their vacation there was ruined when it rained the whole damn time they were there.

Paris would be great too, if they spoke more English and... "if you wanted the steak 'why'd ya order the duck"?

This is A GREAT FILM great film, unerringly faithful to its decidedly American literary roots, with great performances by some great actors. And if you find Jessica Alba so one dimensional you want to kill her, maybe that's the point.

Other suggested recent American Rural Noirs of note: Winters Bone (2010) The Frozen River (2008)

To see what a more lyrical Mexican voice has added to the genre: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) The Burning Plain (2008)

And of course the Cohen's brilliant noirs: No Country For Old Men (2007) Blood Simple (1984)

Lastly, there is always Tavernier's beautifully exuberant french adaptation of Thompson's "Pop. 1280", "Coup de Torchon", with the story moved from North Carolina to French West Africa. There is a likable comic buffoon in Noiret's playing of the character a little at odds with Thompson's... but if you don't like the French, stay out of the kitchen.

Having read the novel by Jim Thompson, I think I can safely say that The Killer Inside Me sets a certain challenge for director Michael Winterbottom, or for that matter a challenge for anyone who wants to adapt it for the screen. It is a story that takes us deep into the mind of a Texas psychopath. Getting inside peoples heads is so much easier on pages than on screen. Winterbottom gives it a game shot, but doesn't quite manage to capture the book's depth and scope. The occasional use of narration (using segments from the book) or flashback, only helps a bit. Anyone who has not read the Thompson will find this movie somewhat hard to follow.

It's worth noting I guess that the movie is a noble adaptation, but for some odd reason, the plot is more convoluted in film format. There is a certain lack of explanation, and this is the film's biggest weakness. That does NOT mean however, that is isn't worth seeing.

As a dramatic thriller, The Killer Inside Me is effective. It is gritty, and grim, with good performances, nicely composed montages, and Winterbottom captures the essence of 1950's Texas fairly well. There is something kind of warm and communal about the town of Central City, the grass is green and the sun is always shining. Ignoring the fact that there is a psycho in the local law enforcement, which is discouraging, this is the kind of place where one might fancy a summer home. The movie comes with an ending that is absolutely devastating (despite being a bit rushy). Overall, Winterbottom makes mostly good decisions, but also a few not so good ones. He throws in country music jingles in places that are quite unnecessary.

I think I can recommend the film, but not without warning. It's tricky, and it needs a bit of a tune up. It's still an evocative drama though, which packs a dirty punch, and leaves you thinking.

Worth a watch but not for the faint of heart. Follows a complicated flawed cop and his path to the end. Did I mention it was dark ?

Cant help expecting more.....

The good things -

Casey Affleck and the character of Lou Ford as the baby faced psycho who thinks he is smart but isn't as clever as he believes Plausible violence - It wasn't good to watch but the situations felt real. I am still not convinced it was so necessary to have so much as you can get the point fairly quickly and then it just starts eating up film time which you could probably use better doing other things.

The bad things The ending - was stupid on so many levels. If by some chance it wasn't in his imagination then what are the chances that so many people have no sense of smell... Would have been much better to finish the film 10 minutes earlier. Dialogue. Maybe its just me and maybe it was the cinema but I just didn't catch what was being said a lot of the time. The Elias Koteas character in particular was hard to understand, and with so many little clues and pointers to whats happening and the different relationships its frustrating when you start missing things

The film as a whole felt incoherent, and I cant help thinking that there are much better films covering the same sort of area

This takes place in the 1950s and was adapted from a novel published in 1952. Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is the sheriff of a small southern town called Central City. Everybody likes him and he seems like a quiet, laid-back kind of guy--but something inside him makes him kill people. He kills a woman and a guy and sets it up to look like a double murder...but people suspect something is up and Lou finds himself slowly getting sucked into being accused.

A combination of a character study and film noir. Most of the film is narrated by Ford so you're able to find out what he's thinking and why he's doing it. There are no clear answers why he kills but there are plenty of clues. It's film noir but most of it takes place on bright sunshiny days--clearly at odds with the dark tone of the film. The production design is great--this does look like the 1950s. There is violence and it's VERY sick and disturbing but there's not a lot of it. But when it does hit it's brutal. There's plenty of sex also (some of it is S&M) but it's not explicit--most of it is shot from the chest up. Affleck is incredible in his role. He acts and looks like such a sweet nice guy that when the violence erupts it's shocking. Seriously--this is one of THE best performances of 2010. Also the supporting roles are full of talented actors--Jessica Alba (OK--she's NOT talented but she's OK here), Kate Hudson, Ned Beatty, Elias Koteas and Simon Baker.

In the negative the film is a little too long--I found the last 20 minutes or so very anti-climatic. Also Affleck's accent was a problem. He adopts a heavy southern accent here--and I had trouble making out some of his lines! I had to keep replaying certain scenes because I couldn't figure out what he was saying! Still I found this fascinating but disturbing. The graphic violence and sex might be too much for some people but, if you can handle that, I recommend this movie. I give it an 8.

Greetings again from the darkness. The film is based upon the work of crime novelist Jim Thompson, who is quite famous as a writer and whose works have often been translated to film. This time oft-creepy director Michael Winterbottom is in charge and comes pretty close to creating a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the bits that fall short, very nearly ruin the film.

Psychological crime thrillers can be the most fascinating genre (see Inception), but only when the lead psycho is relatable in some sense and the story is complete. Here, Casey Affleck gives an outstanding performance as the dude you don't want your daughter to date. There is a deep darkness hidden behind his aw-shucks facade of innocence and cutesy west Texas drawl.

The violence is expected, yet still shocking, when it first rears its head on poor Jessica Alba. We feel the first punch. What happens in this first encounter catches us off-guard and leaves us wanting to know more background on Affleck's character. Instead, we are really only spectators in his plan of violence that seems to have no real goal. Think Natural Born Killers. Heck, even Ted Bundy had a real plan!

The creepiness factor is upped a bit since most everyone associated with the crimes seems to suspect Affleck's character, but no one knows what to do or how to stop him. Elias Koteas and Simon Baker (miscast) are two who try. Personally I wanted more of the Koteas character as well as Ned Beatty, who plays a powerful developer against whom Affleck holds a grudge.

Bill Pullman is tossed in near the end to help wrap things up, but mostly the ending is as unsatisfying as the rest of the story. It is uncomfortable to watch Affleck's character, so devoid of morals and empty of soul, but it feels wasted on a small town deputy sheriff with no vision. Maybe that's not such a bad thing ... but it makes for a much weaker film.

I was reminded of a review I once read of another film, Roger Ebert's take on Aliens, when finished watching Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of Jim Thompson's nasty pulp novel of the same name. He said of the film that it is extremely, excellently made, with fantastic acting and a sense of mood that is amazing and so on... but that the film also made him uneasy and disturbed. And the Killer Inside Me, most of us can agree, is the latter. It's a kind of traumatic experience once you give yourself in to the character - but I mean this as a compliment. Others, as I have seen so far in other reviews and feedback on the film, from Sundance to the major critics, are more damning than praising.

And I can't blame them. The big controversial scene that has people talking- much like "they" were talking, for example, about last year's Antichrist- is shocking, and brutal, and the way that director Michael Winterbottom and his editor cut the scene, of the main character beating a prostitute to death with his bare hands on her face, made me feel sick to my stomach. And yet, this is, for me, a success in terms of its effectiveness. I didn't feel cheated or laugh unintentionally at the faux-shock value (unlike the scenes in Antichrist), because the gaping, horrible space of the character of Lou Ford opened up and for a moment I nearly forgot I was watching a film. The constant apologizing of Ford to his victim, and her own reactions as her end comes near, make it almost unprecedented in its way about it.

The film is a pickle to recommend, because it's hard to tell someone "You have to see this movie, it's got like this f***ed up character who beats women to death and keeps covering up his crimes and is slick with those around him and a Sociopath and so on". It's a movie that for those who come it will be able to take from it what they will, as it peers from a first-person perspective (Lou Ford, played by Casey Affleck, is in every scene of the film), will get a visceral reaction. I imagine it's hard not to be affected in some way by the film, and this character, which makes Winterbottom and Affleck and everyone else's work in the film so commendable.

Not to mention Jim Thompson, the author. Like in other books he's written, and he's written plenty (such as my personal favorite A Hell of a Woman), he uses pulp fiction and sleazy characters and intrigue and twists to jump off into what are harrowing stories of the human psyche. Lou Ford is not like a stupid serial killer in a horror movie, and the supporting characters are a little more complex (or at least aren't so cookie-cutter) as they might be in a slasher. He's got a past that is only so-much hinted at by the director as to get us interested in what happened to him - it's never something as blatant as "Mommy did this or that" but it's more about behavior and fetish, what leaps out underneath a slick, grinning Texas sheriff who is seen as a "good boy" by those around him. The other characters more or less see through him after a while, but Ford only picks up on it in pieces, the glances from others, and his lack of emotion around most people. He's the villain and hero of his own story. We, as the audience, know a little better.

It's a sharp script and a cast that is put together wonderfully (Jessica Alba at her sexiest, which is part of the point for her character aside from her affection for the cold Ford, and Ned Beatty as the guy who built up the town, plus Elias Koteas as a suspecting Union man who has ties to the deceased characters in the story), but somewhat surprising is Casey Affleck. Once again playing a character by the name of Ford (only this time not a Coward, too schizophrenic for that), he's got a high voice and mannerisms that hide little but somehow Affleck gives the guy something... different about him. Somehow a psycho man with little on his mind except hiding his crimes and his sexual predilections comes naturally to Affleck. He's never been an actor to fully give me "WOW!" on my face, until now really.

Some things about the film are a little too disturbing or just bizarre (I still ponder over the ending, which seems like it could all be inside the mind of the protagonist). And, as mentioned, it's hard to see if the film has a "target" audience. You can't market-research this - it's a chilling, uncompromising neo-noir with sex and violence that is precisely subversive and with a cast that mixes art-house finery with a little Hollywood A-list. For me, for its dark, deep intentions, it hit the spot.

During the Sydney Film Festival I viewed this movie in the beautiful Sydney State Theatre early morning. It was winter cold, pre-paid people waiting in line for free morning paper, good hot coffee or whatever. An elegant occasion. 'The Killer Inside Me' still stays with me as I had to look away from the imagery but stayed until the end. Everything about this movie was totally considered, the viewer was taken where the director wanted them to go like a fine writer. Did I want to go there - no; but I did because it is a meticulous cinema on all levels. A little over the top at the end but visually gorgeous, interesting casting, restrained direction and acting which creates tension and surprise. I'm filling in space here as I have to write more than ten lines.

A director can make or break a film, we all know that, but I would argue that film noir is the one genre where the director is most vital to the success of the film. I say that because it is most often a film that can work as style over substance and when it works that style is brilliant. For me John Dahl and the Coen Brothers are the best living noir directors. Blood Simple, Kill Me Again, Red Rock West, are all modern noir works of genius. This film not so much. The sound editor should never work in film again. Mumbled lines were often made harder to hear by overly loud country western swing background music. The sound was a true mess. As far as the acting, it was uniformly strong. Casey Affleck and Elias Koteas shine above a still very solid and talented cast, but I just didn't believe any of what transpired. I think a more competent director would have overcome that problem. I know that Winterbottom was trying to juxtapose the clean cut innocent exterior of the Affleck character with the sociopathic interior, but he overdoes it. It is not an easy film to watch, and if you don't cringe at some of the goings on, I hope we never cross paths in a dark alley.

Better than "Brick" but worse than any other film noir that I can remember having seen and I have seen a lot of them. Probably my favorite genre.