Here's an idea. Let's review this movie without reviewing the controversy surrounding it. Here's all you need to know: KILLER JOE received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA, and right or wrong, that's the fact of the matter. If you're 17 or older, you can go see this movie if it's playing near you, so shut the fuck up. If you're under 17, you'll have a hundred ways to watch this movie in a couple of months, so you shut up too. If you think the rating is outrageous, make sure everyone you know sees the movie, which happens to be one of my favorites of the year so far. The more popular an NC-17 movie is, the less the rating itself will be seen as a hindrance. Let's mainstream this thing, people, and you can feel good about supporting a powerful and severely disturbing film in the process.
Based the early-1990s play by Tracy Letts (a Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member, who also wrote the screen adaptation), KILLER JOE finds Letts re-teaming with director William Friedkin after the 2006 film BUG. The pair collaborate to tell a Gothic Southern horror story involving the rather despicable Smith family of Dallas. The first thing that strikes you about the movie is that there's no easy entry point. As an audience, we tend to gravitate to the nicest person in a story, but such a person simply doesn't exist in KILLER JOE. The best you can hope for is that this pack of back-stabbing idiots doesn't end up killing each other by the end.
Emile Hirsch plays son Chris, who is in desperate need of money and discovers that his never-seen mother has a substantial insurance policy that pays out to Chris's sister Dottie (Juno Temple). Chris enlists his father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) and stepmother Sharla (Gina Gershon) to help with a plan that involves hiring "Killer" Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a professional killer who also happens to be a police officer. His price for killing the mother is non-negotiable, but since the Smiths don't have the money up front, they promise to pay him after the job is done from the insurance money. He agrees but only if the family puts up Dottie is collateral. What this means exactly is unclear, but we soon found out Joe wants to spend a lot of time with young Dottie in hopes of seducing her.
The movie is front-loaded with almost unbearable tension as things go from wrong to wronger as the plot unfolds. Allegiances fall apart, lies are told, and murders are committed. KILLER JOE is a series of continuous sinking feelings, but at its core is a riveting, essential performance by McConaughey who commands silence and respect when he walks in the room, he's the ultimate seducer of women, and he's a scary son of a bitch when someone crosses him, a truth that is evidenced in a horrific final moment in the Smith's kitchen.
If you've heard about the scene I'm talking about, it's not as bad as you think; if you haven't heard about it, it's worse than you can imagine. Hah! Either way, you can't help but be impressed with McConaughey's coiled aggression ready to spring unpredictably. Since last year's THE LINCOLN LAWYER, I have been so impressed with his long-suppressed skills as an actor in such works as MAGIC MIKE and BERNIE, and I'm definitely looking forward to what he has to offer in Lee Daniels' THE PAPERBOY and Jeff Nichols' MUD before year's end.
His co-stars aren't too shabby either, especially Thomas Haden Church playing a less gregarious and sure-footed character than he usually does. Ansel is weak man, who is easily talked into doing stupid things against his better judgement. Hirsch is also good as the short-tempered son who lets his emotions guide him rather than his brain. Gershon is fearless as the conniving matriarch, always looking for an angle to better her position in this conspiracy. I'm never really been that impressed with Juno Temple as a performer; her barely legal sex appeal always felt forced in other works, but here, she nails it in a surprisingly layered performance as perhaps the only character in the film that actually does some growing up during the course of the story.
Some may say that KILLER JOE is not a pleasant movie, but I found myself laughing quite a bit as some of the pitch-black humor and idiocy occupying the screen. There's a great deal to get caught up in, and even if you're disgusted by some of the behavior and attitude on display, there's no possible way you can turn away. The film succeeds because it keeps you guessing what will happen next, and often shocks you when you find out if you were right.
