There is a seemingly innocuous scene during William Friedkin’s polarizing film, Killer Joe, an NC-17 adaptation written by Tracy Letts and based on his off-Broadway play of the same name. The heart and heroine of this darkly twisted southern-fried fairy tale is Dottie Smith, a young and mostly innocent girl who snaps at her brother Chris when he turns off a cartoon she is watching in a diner. She wants to know how it will end, after all.
The joke, of course, is that cartoons don’t really end. The crazy whirligig of violence and mayhem keeps moving as the characters chase and debase each other over and over again. There does not need to be rhyme or reason. It is simple mindless entertainment... a slapstick opera of pain and pointlessness begetting more pain and pointlessness.
It would be easy to make that last sentence a metaphor for this film, but it would not be 100% accurate. There is plenty of substance underneath the extra crispy exterior of this film... even if it is often charred and bitter to the tongue. The meal itself may leave you with an upset stomach, but that does not mean it lacked plenty of nutrition.
Friedkin has long been an undisputed master of the disturbing and bizarre. He has balanced humor and macabre well before but never quite this effectively (his 2006 film Bug accomplished this juggling act until it began to collapse from its own ridiculousness). Killer Joe’s tension and stinging wit represent each side of a spinning coin that never stops until the final credits roll.
It may be his best film since his 1973 masterpiece, The Exorcist, which alienated horror audiences in a way never seen before... it sort of played like a knife blade pressed against the frazzled last nerve of those who prefer a world where good ultimately triumphs over evil. Yet, in the Texan world of Killer Joe there is only evil and various degrees of more evil, ranging from opportunism and greed to unflinching, merciless retribution.
Then, there is a different breed of immorality: the titular character who is calm and collected on the surface and batshit bonkers just underneath. Matthew McConaughey is mesmerizing with his unsettling performance, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The plot follows the plight of Chris Smith (Emile Hirsch, Into the Wild), a perennial loser who owes money to all the wrong people and their deadline for patience has long expired. Chris hatches a scheme to hire someone to kill his mother and cash out an insurance policy in an attempt to save his own skin. In order to do this, he needs the help of his laconic and dim-witted father, Ansel (Thomas Hayden Church, Sideways), since the policy names Ansel’s youngest child, Dottie (Juno Temple, The Three Musketeers), as the beneficiary.
If the movies have taught us anything it’s that families usually run into trouble when they hire a hit man to kill off one of their own.
The problem is that the gunman the Smiths solicit only takes payment up front. However, in this case, he is willing to make an exception if he can keep the young, virginal Dottie as collateral.
Now you can probably guess why this movie ventures into NC-17 territory.
If this synopsis sounds disturbing that’s only because it is. The script plays like something from the poisonous pen of Flannery O’Connor or William Faulkner, but the drama is more taut and palpable because of the immensely talented cast that makes the trailer park trash characters seem mostly real, even if their existence itself is outlandish. They may be human cartoons locked in a cycle of directionless desperation without any hope of a happy ending, but they do not seem to realize it.
Hirsch takes turns at playing angry, almost-but-not-quite tender, seemingly clever and perfectly clueless with surprising ease and Church absolutely steals every scene he’s in with his perfect comic timing and tone. His character is not overly loquacious, but his observations are so simple (though often a step or two too late) that they seem profoundly hilarious. He is fun to watch and he plays off Gina Gerson (Bound) extremely well. She is remorselessly nasty... just the right amount of over-the-top ornery as Church’s second wife, the cold-hearted and conniving Cleo, who may have bitten off more than she can chew with the Smith family.
Of course, the highlight of the film is McConaughey who inhabits Killer Joe with a courteous charm to offset his sadistic savagery. In his day job, he is a detective so he has the skills to make murders look like accidents. He is a step ahead of everyone else, but never reveals what cards he holds in his hand.
He is downright hypnotic at times, completely unpredictable. You don’t know if he’ll laugh at a joke or beat someone senseless with a can of food. McConaughey’s always been an impressive physical force in the past, but his portrayal of Killer Joe is often more menacing when he seems soft-spoken and in control because you know his next eruption could occur at any moment. No doubt, he will be up for a few acting award nominations if the critics can look past the film’s dreaded NC-17 status. (Side Note: Since the debut of the NC-17 rating in 1990 with Henry & June, such rated films are rarely profitable at the box office. The highest grossing NC-17 film is Showgirls with just over $20 million. It had a production budget of $45 million.)
The emotional core of the film certainly belongs to Dottie. She’s a rag doll belle, a delusional waif who is beginning to see through the cracks in her own crazy family. She is a heroine who lost the battle before she was even born... but that does not stop her from hoping for a better life. Unfortunately, she may have to swim through some murky, polluted waters to get to a better shore.
But then, everybody in the world of Killer Joe is trying to do the same thing and they don't care who they drown in their wake along the way.
Overall, Killer Joe is uneven enough so that the viewer never can really get solid footing. The laughter comes often, but much of it is anything but comfortable. The drama is ever-present, but it’s anything but formulaic. The end result is certainly brutal and not compatible for every palette. However, even those who cannot find any joy from watching this depraved look at the worst of humanity can be assured that it is stunningly original and its voice is almost impossible to ignore.
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