Review for 'The Killer Inside Me'

Director – Michael Winterbottom

Cast – Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson.

Release Date – Out Now

[SPOILER WARNING]

Part of Michael Winterbottom’s interest for the audience is how he is contently changing between genres. Now he has turned his attention from music to Noir by adaption pulp fiction writer Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me.

The story follows Lou Ford played by Casey Affleck (who isn’t to far in this role compared to his Bob Ford in The Assassination of Jesse James ), a quiet, hardworking cop in a small town in Texas as he falls in love with a prostitute Joyce played by Jessica Alba whilst also juggling girlfriend Amy played by Kate Hudson. As exciting as this could and should have been within the first half an hour I was turned off of the whole film. And I was never picked up again.

Lou isn’t just a simple man, inside him he literally has a killing side which is brought on by something we never find out. Lou lives in his fathers shoes, he lives in his house, reads his book and even sexually abuses the same woman his farther did. This unprovoked madness he seems to have just falls short of the audience being interested in this side to him. Within the first thirty minutes he viciously murders Joyce in a very graphic. Sight & Sound magazine (which is a view I and every film fan should take on board) noted that this graphic violence where done how they should be in contracts to the cartoonish violence form Tarantino but I’m afraid it doesn’t work and it is complete misogyny. You can’t gloss it up. The woman in the movie are portrayed as weak, sexually obsessed and who come back for more spankings and kicks to the stomach. Whilst the women are being kicked around the deaths which happen to the men are quick and brief and involve a gun shot to the head and an off screen hanging.

The story drains on and soon becomes boring and that as well as the unnecessary sex scene and violent attacks on the women characters makes the whole experience an endurance test. The only redeeming factors are Casey Affleck’s performances when he’s not spouting “I love you” whilst laying into his poor victim, and the end but those two aside the movie is nothing more then misogynistic pornography.

Winterbottom and Sigh & Sound are trying to defend the violence by saying its staying true to the novel but fifty years after the books release we should know not to convey something as horrific and unnecessary. But even more surprising is how the BBFC let the film slide without any cuts. Cuts where needed and so was a good editor to keep the pace going because you can judge a film by how many times you look at your watch. And during The Killer Inside Me it happened a lot.

Anticipation 4

Enjoyment 1

Retrospect 2

BEWARE THE YOB!

Indescribable... Indestructible! Nothing Can Stop It! It’s… it’s... the Yob!

Possibly a bit over dramatic but you know where I’m going with this. It seems these days the biggest thing we fear in our country (of England not America) isn’t nuclear war, or the economy but the yob culture. After watching film such as Eden Lake, Harry Brown and more recently Heartless I began to think about if this is such a national fear we all share?

Spoilers ahead

In Eden Lake, a group of teenagers terrors led by none other then Jack O’Connell, haunt a happy couple played by Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly as a beautiful day turns to hell by the evening. Whilst the movie as a whole is unbelievably flawed the performances are good (as expected from O’Connell and Fassbender) and you do actually fear O’Connell’s character. He shows so little care for human life and forces his followers into committing horrendous acts. The fact that they tie up Fassbender’s character and stick a utility knife in his mouth, over the death of a beloved pet is horrible to even think about. That scene still haunts me.

Then you look at Harry Brown in which an O.A.P (in this case Michael Cain) is so scared to walk down the street after the death of his friends that he has to fight back.

The yobs in Harry Brown are really threatening to society in one pointless scene two yobs circle a mother with child before gunning her down. It’s scene like these that make me wonder where the writer got the inspiration. Sure, you hear enough about it in the news but now that it’s seeping into our contempory British cinema shows that we as a society no long fear organized gang warfare but it’s the kids we fear most.

Also Harry Brown unlike Eden Lake is actually well told but still pretty unbelievable.

And then you arrive at Heartless which has the most interesting thoughts on yobs in the East End of London. Jim, the birth-marked photography who spends most of his time alone, stumbles across a gang of yobs one night around an open fire (typical Friday night) only to discover they are actually Lizard Demons. The new reports about their brutal murders and sacrificial ritual that it is just normal kids in masks however our hero knows. It’s this which leads him to descend into hell and back. The facts that the demons walk around in hoods and track suit bottoms really was an interesting twist on it.

What I believe is that the Yob culture in Britain is actually having an effect on the mental stability of the people in our society. We (the non-yobs) see them as a threat but also as animals that are reckless and naive and so carless for human life.

Is this a reflection of our current society? Or is it just over exaggerations for propaganda against them? Who know, but all we can do in the mean while is run and hide under a rock.

Oldboy vs The Chaser, Park vs Na, grit on grit.

It appears these days the only movies that seem to captivate or spark my creative imagination is World Cinema. And anyone who knows me knows that I am pretty big on Asian cinema and more importantly Korean cinema. I just feel that they are aloud to go the extra step in comparison to Hollywood. Oldboy (2005) was directed by my personal favourite Park Chan-wook and The Chaser (2008) was directed by first time director Na Hong-jin. Both movies are being transferred to the Western audience: The Chaser has been picked up by the makers of The Departed whilst Oldboy he been picked up by Spielberg with Will Smith playing the lead. I won’t even go there.

But upon watching both movies I thought about there similarities and differences which I will go through in an attempt to interest you the reader into seeing them before and if indeed they are remade.

I’ll start chronologically, Oldboy tells the story of Oh Dae-su, who is captured on the night of hi daughters birthday and imprisoned for fifteen years in what appears to be a shabby hotel. He is given a bed, a toilet and a television which becomes his whole world. Be begins to attempt suicide before eventually training his body and teaching himself his own sloppy martial arts. After his lengthy time he wakes up in a suitcase on a rooftop left to seek revenge on his kidnappers in the streets of Seoul in South Korea.

The Chaser on the other hand follows tells a tale again on the streets of Seoul. This time follows Eom Jung-ho a detective turned pimp on the hunt for someone who he suspects have been selling his ‘girls’ but instead there is more sinister work at play as Jung-ho is soon to find out. The tag line sets the movie up perfectly “In 60 minutes he found the killer, in 12 hours he must find the next victim.” As Jung-ho learns more and more he finds himself becomes a detective again working with the Seoul police department on and off to find Mi-jin who is at the mercy of her kidnapper.

So with that out of the way, here is what I thought about the movies. I wanna first say I really enjoyed them both. And the fact people have taken interest in the west to remake them it shows how popular they are. I first heard about Oldboy in an advertisement in a movie magazine. I haven’t seen anything from Korea and from the poster I was enticed by something which I to this day do not know. I bought it and was thrown into a culture I had not seen previously. A tragedy so dark it would make Shakespeare spin in his grave. After seeing the rest of Park’s back catolog I have not become an avid fan on Korean cinema and actor Song Kang-ho (The Host, JSA, Thirst). I have blogged about Park Chan-wook before so check it out for further information. Oldboy is about the psyche of man who had everything and was striped of it, “Oldboy is a powerful film not because of what it depicts, but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare” Ebert mentioned in his review (which I will mention for both films).

Now even though I complement the movie I must say it is certainly not for the weak stomached. There is visceral horror like for example someone being tortured by pulling teeth with a rusty hammer, but also with plot developments which I won’t go into. To add to that Choi Min-sik, the actor who plays Dae-su, is Buddhist but in one awkwardly disturbing scene towards the beginning decides to eat a squid live. I mention his religious background because they used real squid and had to ask for forgiveness before eating them in such a grotesque spectacle. I don’t enjoy or accept animal cruelty in movies and I even believe that that scene is one of the most brutal in which I have to skip or look away.

In Ebert’s review of the movie he consistently notes how much he enjoyed the movie and with the violence and graphic scenes with statement such as “Oldboy ventures to emotional extremes, but not without reason.” And I totally agree and it’s this which makes it stand out from most modern thrillers which focus on governmental conspiracies and explosions.

I believe the same could be said about The Chaser with some diversions. In Ebert’s review of the movie he did enjoy it as well hailing it as “a poster child for what a well-made thriller looked like in the classic days.” He noted that the chases in The Chaser are realistic as we feel like the characters do as they stop to breath - “There are no supermen and no sensational stunts. When the actors run, we see that they are running.” This adds to the grit the film has. In Oldboy there is a sequence which is my favourite fight scene in any movie and involves Dae-su with a hammer fighting fifty men in a narrow corridor all shot with one long take and not editing needed.

It’s is gritty edge in both films which feels more authentic and realistic. In Oldboy there are dream like sequences and more ‘out there’ sections but over all the possibilities of events happening are quit possibly and scary.

My only problem with The Chaser [*Possible Spoiler Alert*] is something I don’t believe Ebert didn’t pick up on. And that would be the misogyny. Granted the movie is about a prostitute murderer however through out I feel the women are treated weaker then their male counter parts. All the infliction of severe pain happens to women excluding one male death. I hope it was not an intentional move by the director by I thought it wasn’t. Some distressing scenes happen in which a man inflicts pain on a woman several times with various tools, whilst the men in the film chase and punch each other only to later be ready for round two.

I would be hard pushed to say which movie is better and if you take Rotten Tomatoes as the stand point then Oldboy is the winner. However over all as a piece I thought The Chaser is more consistent. Oldboy is fully of brilliant scenes and I can see why it received a lot of attention in the West. As the title state on the DVD for The Chaser “I urge you to see it” and the same applies for Oldboy.

Roger Ebert's reviews

Oldboy

The Chaser

Review for 'Heartless'

Release Date - Out Now

Directed by – Philip Ridely

Starring – Jim Sturgess, Clémence Poésy, Noel Clark.

“Another horror movie. Just what the world needs.” say Matt Bochenski [for LWL] in his review of Philip Ridley’s latest film Heartless without any hesitation or care for his genre bashing. I myself am obviously a very big horror fan so for someone to say that I simply answer “Yes it is actually.”

But the thing is about Heartless is that it isn’t much of a horror. I’d say it’s about as much of a horror as Donnie Darko was. Sure they both have horror elements with Heartless verging more onto complete horror appose to Donnie Darko, but over all I’d say they where supernatural fantasy with cheap horror scares. But this connection between the two films which share the same themes and the same kooky and shy protagonist (not forgetting their demented psyches).

Heartless tells the Brother’s Grim like story about Jamie played by Jim Sturgess, a photographer from the East end of London who was born with a vivid birthmark on his face and body. He feels like he is a social outcast as the yobs around his building make fun of him on his way home which has thrown him into a pit of disperse and loneliness. One night whilst taking photo’s he comes across a strange scene with hooded daemons disguised as yobs screaming and cackling around a fire then at his brothers studio Jamie begins to fall for Tia played by Clémence Poésy who’s heritage and background is left in the shadows. What follows is these two instances begins his decent into this strange world of daemons and self loathing as Jamie makes a deal with Papa B.

I had been looking forward to Heartless for a few weeks now and after watching it I had to think it over. Now this to me isn’t a bad thing. Whether a film turns out terrible in the end if it made you think about it it’s done something to resonate in you. Thankful to say I really did enjoy the flick. At one point I began to doubt it however it recovered.

The dark portal of London will haunt the local’s nights and indeed those walking alone at night. The film is lead brilliantly by Sturgess and has some great actors making an appearance such as Noel Clark as the next door neighbour and my personal favourite Eddie Marsan as the Weapons Dealer. Some strange choices where made by the director and a lot about characters and plot are left in the dark to die which makes some element suffer but over all it’s an enjoyable look into the mind of a young man battling his daemons. We’ve all been there, but hopefully not to such an extreme. I can see this being dragged away by the cult movie community to a place it probably belongs.

Anticipation - 4

Enjoyment - 3

In Retrospect – 3