Film Review #6: Killer Joe

     I would like to thank all you readers first and foremost for pushing this blog past the 100 view mark (Triple digits what!?!) So to thank you I'll be reviewing a movie that isn't even in theatres yet. Now I know what you're thinking... Conscious you must pirate movies! No, kind readers I do not. I just simply am lucky enough to live in close proximity to Toronto and have a nice enough sister to take me to TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival). So how new is this movie? It doesn't even have a trailer yet so here's a clip and let's get on with the review of Killer Joe.

     Killer Joe is the story of a gambling obsessed man that gets in a little too deep with a bookie and all of a sudden has to come up with 5000 dollars or he'll be killed. So he does what any desperate man would do... He gets a bank loan, I'm totally kidding that wouldn't make for a very good movie, he does the more sensible thing, hires a hitman to kill his mother to collect her insurance money.

     Now here's what I want you to do before you go into the theatre to watch this movie, I want you to imagine your favorite Cohen Brothers movie (Fargo, Raising Arizona and Burn After Reading are all solid choices) and multiply everything by 10. This is how much fun this movie is. It's bloody, it's brilliant. It's bloody brilliant.

     So this dude with a gambling debt (played by Emile Hirsch, Into The Wild and Alpha Dog) needs cash and gets the brilliant idea to hire a hitman to kill his mother in order to collect the insurance, which is in his little sister Dottie's (played brilliantly by Juno Temple) name, to pay off his bookie.

     Now Emile Hirsch's character, Chris, isn't very bright, this much is apparent neither is his father, Ansel (played by Thomas Haden Church, Spiderman 3) or his step-mother Sharla. They're your sterotypical white trash southern family, sharing everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) if there was a movie about Dunnville folk, this would be it (Zing!) As the movie goes on you realize however that Dottie is not stupid by any means despite her childish actions, but I'm getting ahead of myself...

     So after the family decides to kill their mother/wife and split the rest of the insurance money between them, after the hitman's deductible, they make a call to a Dallas Marshall named Joe Cooper (the aforementioned "Killer Joe" played by Matthew McConaughey). Now Joe has killed before and he has a set of rules that he needs to follow, no exceptions made. So when he finds out the family can't pay him his money in advance he decides to walk out on the job, except he took a liking to Dottie and decides to use her as a retainer for his services rendered, he gets access to Dottie (very full access) until a point in time comes where he gets paid. The family reluctantly agree, but start to decide it's not such a good idea.

     Now the acting in this film was outstanding, partly because of the script they had was so strong to begin with, also partly because they clearly trusted their director and just went with the flow. But the story went so far and above my expectations. This movie was hilarious, surprisingly so, and it was very gory which worked so well for what they were aiming for. McConaughey's character was by far the most stale, however being a hitman and not having the southern charm of the other characters, it's not all that surprising and kinda works for the movie.

     So this film has action, comedy, thrills, chills and nudity (A little too much, but whose complaining?) which makes for an unpredictable, and fun movie going experience that had everyone in the 4000 person theatre howling with laughter, gasping with fear, and tilting on the edge of their seats.

     I'm not sure if this is the best movie released in 2011 that I've seen so far this year, but if it isn't it's pretty damn close.