Film Review: Killer Joe

He, that is among you has never contemplated leveraging power, sex and violence over simple random souls, cast me the first stone! That’s one thing that we all have in common with Joe Copper.

Joe (Matthew McConaughey) is a stylish police officer of the beautiful state of Texas; but Joe does have one other job on the side, the best job in the world really. Joe kills people for money. So when sweet and dumb Chris (Emile Hirsch) got his sorry ass in trouble because of his bitch of a mother (allegedly), he asks Joe to help him out in exchange of the promise for nice stack of dough. Obviously, things don’t go quite as planned.

With the right mix of Rednecks, blood and action, Killer Joe initially seems like a safe bet for a good 2 hours of so of sick american entertainment all bumped up with a couple of good old Lolz. However, there are a few things you may not be expecting from this movie and that would definitively worth a few quid on a Wednesday night:

1. Despite most of you lying on your movie record, everyone HAS to picture McConaughey cheesing it up by the side of Jennifer Anistopez. But in Killer Joe, McConaughey does play some sick dude incredibly well. You spend the whole film wondering if he’s a real badass, a proper clown, or if you’ve just puked a little bit in your mouth.

2. Texas is the mother country of some of the grossest food my French lady palate can comprehend. Have you ever had a 800gr deep fried steak? Gross. Anyway, even more disturbing is that real time scene where Gina Gershon (Sharla) is sucking McConaughey kentucky style fried chicken leg off.

3. Family is an important value in pretty much all our western societies. But frankly, who has never wished they could just for one day be a complete asshole with their closest and dearest and trade the old folk life or a sibling’s virtue for a nice bag of hard cash? Thank god some people get to speak it out loud and make a movie about what we all secretly wish.

4. Killer Joe is directed by a gentleman way older than my parents. Born in 1935, William Freidkin directed, to name only one, The Exorcist. Respect, dude.

5. If some boring critics will comment on the story lacking a bit of structure towards the end (fuckups always happen towards the end anyway), the Hollywood crew absolutely mastered bringing to the big screen what originally was a play, without making it some pretentious cabaret type crap. ** SPOILER INNIT ** The scene where Chris gets beaten up by the two Hell’s Angels does look like it’s been nicked from some bad German police show with fake kicks and blows, which gives a great counterpoint to the extremely violent close-ups later on in the story.

In short, a great movie with quite an unexpected turn. Should you only go there to check out McConaughey playing a sicko killer, watch out for a great acting performance (I’ve omit to tell you a few things to manage the surprise… oh I’m so good to you) as well as a bit of stomach shuffling. Well worth it.

Also if you ever wondered why Matthew McConaughey is actually a badass, check out this article.