The Killer Inside Me

This is a hard movie to watch. not because of it's pace which is usually the case, but more about its content. I remember wanting to see it back when it came out. It casts Casey Affleck in the lead role coming off of his other leading success Gone Baby Gone. This one seemed to be up my alley until it got out of hand. I like the era, the actors, and the story, but the way it was portrayed kind of turned my stomach which is saying A LOT. Lou Ford (Affleck) is a deputy sheriff in a small Oklahoma town in the 1940's. Not much happens in these settings mostly, so without Lou and his mental problems it would be a really boring film. It follows Lou through his day of doing his job, visiting a local prostitute [who he seems to love], then he goes home where is regular girlfriend is, only to repeat the process day after day. When he feels he is being played by Joyce (Alba - Prostitute) and the son of a local wealthy man, he turns the tables on both of them. This is where is got hard to watch...more than watch...hard to hear. He beats her within an inch of her life, and the film makers thought it was a good idea to make it as real as possible. The moist smacking sound that his fist makes against her face time after time for what seemed like 5 minutes was a little much in my opinion. Then he murders the rich boy in her house to make it look like he beat her, then she shot him. In a small town where the Sheriff can do no wrong, who is gonna say it happened differently? The DA, Howard Hendricks (Mentalist's Simon Baker) thinks there is way more going on. He follows Lou on his day to day, always getting the story, since Lou was the first on the scene. It just never adds up to him, and he thinks he may have a plan to oust him. From here it is cat and mouse, and before you know it, Lou is further in than he planned, which involves other towns folks and his girlfriend  Amy Stanton which is played by the lovely Kate Hudson. The nudity was nice, but the graphic violence ruined it for me in the end. The story has a good twisted ending, not to say there is a twist at all. Don't think I'll ever watch it again, but I did watch it in it's entirety, so I can firmly say that without that one scene it would've got an AWESOME rating based on the great story.


NBM rates The Killer Inside Me - Good