Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here, with a couple of films that are making their way into art houses around America this week (maybe even taking up one whole screen at a multiplex near you). Do your part to support these films, or at least the good ones…
THE KILLER INSIDE ME
It's been far too long since Hollywood has attempted a film adaptation of the seedy crime novels of the late, great Jim Thompson (THE GETAWAY; AFTER DARK, MY SWEET; THE GRIFTERS). And I love the fact that the prolific British director Michael Winterbottom (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, A MIGHTY HEART, JUDE), a filmmaker who goes out of his way not to repeat himself, should be the one bring to hopefully revive Thompson and bring his sexually deviant and especially violent works back to the big screen with THE KILLER INSIDE ME. Winterbottom works so quickly that his last two films--THE SHOCK DOCTRINE and SUMMER IN GENOA--never even got a proper distribution stateside, despite them both being quite good.
Casey Affleck (GONE BABY GONE, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD, the OCEANS trilogy) plays clean-cut West Texas sheriff Lou Ford, a man whose future seems mapped out quite nicely. He's got a beautiful girlfriend (Kate Hudson), a good job, and a dark side that rarely surfaces unless he's about to murder someone. He's sent out on a call to run a local prostitute (Jessica Alba) out of town, but ends up sleeping with her and falling into a passionate and sadistic relationship with the woman (there's a lot of brutal spanking involved--a habit he picked up as a child). When the powerful father (Ned Beatty) of a man also seeing the prostitute "hires" Ford to break up their relationship, the sheriff stages what appears to be a truly awful double homicide--the son beat the hooker nearly to death, but before she died, she shot him. If you can make it through that sequence, you can make it through just about anything; Affleck shows us a scary, powerful side to his acting abilities that honestly scared me.
Of course, there is no such thing as the perfect crime and although Ford is one of those in charge of the murder investigation, there are loose ends that could implicate him. And thus begins the slow unraveling of our anti-hero. I'm a big fan of films that somehow manage to make us hope the villain doesn't get away with his crime, especially a sociopath like the good sheriff. When he's not killing people, Ford seems like a low-key, charming man, so it's easy for suspicion to roll off of him for a time. Winterbottom does a tremendous job letting the plot burn slow and the tension rise ever so gradually. The more we learn about his upbringing, and the more we realize how truly in love he was with the prostitute, the more we kind of feel for the guy to a point. To say THE KILLER INSIDE ME is a complicated work is an understatement, but it's also completely accurate. The film is dark, atmospheric and perfectly acted. It's also shockingly violent, perverse, and has a character at its center that is without a moral compass. These are all pluses in my book, and if you don't mind a little pain with your meal, you'll probably find the film to be pretty damn good.
LE DONK AND SCOR-ZAY-ZEE
Most of what I knew about the latest film from UK master director Shane Meadows (TWENTY FOUR SEVEN, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE MIDLANDS, THIS IS ENGLAND) was that it starred Paddy Considine and that the great band Arctic Monkeys made an appearance. Sold. I knew nothing about plot or the fake documentary style of the film. Imagine if THIS IS SPINAL TAP were about the band's roadies instead of the musicians, and you might get something of a sense of what LE DONK AND SCOR-ZAY-ZEE provides us. Considine (IN AMERICA, HOT FUZZ, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM) plays the roadie in question, named Le Donk, a man who has never had much go right in his life for reasons that are almost entirely his fault. Not long before director Meadows (playing himself) meets up with Le Donk to follow his life as he works backstage at a music festival, he has lost probably the best thing in his life, his pregnant girlfriend (Olivia Colman, also from HOT FUZZ), who is now living with another man.
Le Donk's constant companion is a pudgy, would-be rapper named Scor-Zay-Zee (pronounced in a remarkably similar way to the Italian-American director of GOODFELLAS and RAGING BULL), who seems about as useless as you might expect a British guy named after the director of MEAN STREETS and THE GANGS OF NEW YORK might be. I couldn't swear to it, but every line of dialogue in this film feels improvised, and it's all a scream. Considine has long been a tremendous dramatic actor, but in recent years, he's dabbled in comedy with exciting results. He creates such a complete character out of a man with few redeeming qualities that it's like watching the miracle of birth, with sometimes equally painful results. The awkward situations Le Donk finds himself in are difficult to watch at times, and I mean that as a compliment.
The film's true comic inspiration comes when the pair get to the festival to help set up the stage and interact with Arctic Monkeys. What's even more remarkable is that Scor-Zay-Zee (played by newcomer Dean Palinczuk) actually has some talent as a lyricist and performer. The band members spot him free-styling on stage and offer him (with Le Donk on keyboards and additional hilarious vocal hooks) a one-song slot just before the band goes on. We suspect that since Le Donk's ex- is about to give birth to his child any minute and that this might complicate things, but aside from this slightly predictable plot point, the film feels spontaneous, loose, and blessedly free of convention. The true test of how much fun this film is to watch is that I would have gladly watched another movie featuring just one of the many characters featured in LE DONK AND SCOR-ZAY-ZEE; they are all fun to watch, whether they are squirming in a tense moment or just being drunk and stupid.
Although Meadows is no stranger to some humor in his films, it's nice to see him cut loose and let humor be the driving force the way it is here. And I should add that the director gives himself a fair number of funny lines as well, as he comments on Le Donk's sometimes atrocious behavior. My guess is that if you want to see this film, your only chance will be IFC On Demand or on DVD, since it's getting a micro-theatrical release. However if you can find it, do so. This is a oddly charming look at two guys with a dream and only one of them has the talent to possibly see it through. But it's the failure that's the more interesting creature to observe. It's a truly enjoyable work.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcool.com
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