Killer Joe

I have taken a couple of week off from posting and I just flat out needed a bit of a break from updating the sites. After seeing Killer Joe I felt compelled to write about it, mostly due to the fact that it was one of the most fucked up movies that I have seen in a while. I know that I reviewed Excision and said that it was one of the most fucked up movies ever, but I kind of knew what I was getting into with that movie. This one not so much. Also, for anyone that thinks that Matthew McConaughey cannot act, just go and watch this movie and you will be proven wrong.

Killer Joe tells the story of a despicable family that hires a hitman, Joe Cooper(McConaughey), to kill one of their family members to collect on a life insurance policy. Things go horribly wrong as usual and the family has to put up their youngest member, Dottie (Juno Temple), as collateral to Joe. from that point on the movie becomes a blur of violence and fried chicken oral sex.

Most of you have never heard of this movie due to the simple fact that it is rated NC-17 and there isn't really a huge market for a movie with that rating in the larger theater chains. It was also forgotten by critics when it came to award season and Matthew McConaughey could make a serious case that he was snubbed for a best actor nomination somewhere. His performance is simply magnetic, he holds your attention for every millisecond that he is on screen and his intensity never lets up at all. I hope he starts leaning more towards these meaty dramatic performance instead of the shitty rom-coms that he has been dedicated to for the last decade.

This is one of those special movies that truly has no hero, it is just a series of people that are worse than the person next to them. Joe is a cop who kills people on the side for extra money, he isn't fighting for a higher cause. The family agrees to kill a member of their family with almost no hesitation because they will be able to put a little coin in their pockets and make their shitty lives slightly less so for a short time. The closest thing to a sympathetic character is Dottie, who is offered to Joe as collateral for his services. But then you think about that fact that she never even hesitated in saying yes to the murder of her mother and it taints your opinion of this "innocent" character. There are no innocents in this movie and that is one of the truly unique things about it, everyone in the movie is despicable. You just have to side with the lesser of the evils in the movie.

I wish I would have seen this movie last year because it easily would have made my top 10 movies of 2012. McConaughey proved that he is a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood for a long time and brought William Friedkin back to the forefront of the conversation of best directors in Hollywood. Check this movie out as soon as possible because it will definitely leave a lasting impression on you. You will also never look at Kentucky Fried Chicken the same way ever again.