KILLER JOE: A Twisted Good Time, If You Can Stomach It

KILLER JOE (Dir. William Friedkin, 2011)

It’s wonderfully fitting that this movie features rowdy local legends Southern Culture on the Skids on its soundtrack.

That’s because the psychobilly band often throws fried chicken into their just-as-rowdy audience, and in this movie, fried chicken gets used…well, I’m not going to tell you how fried chicken is used in this movie!

I will tell you that this NC-17 rated dark comedy (from the people who brought you BUG!) is a lot of twisted fun, that is, if you can stomach it.

In what may be his finest role this side of David Wooderson in DAZED AND CONFUSED, Matthew McConaughey plays the title character, a corrupt cop/hitman, who is employed by a Texan trailer trash family to murder one of their own so they can collect the insurance money.

As a scuzzy heavily in debt drug-dealer, Emile Hirsch hatches the plan to kill his mother, and convinces his scummy extremely dim-witted mechanic father (Thomas Haden Church with very unappealing patches of facial hair), to go along with it – as the target is his ex.

Church’s sleazy waitress wife (Gina Gershon), is also game, and Juno Temple as Hirsh’s flighty not-all-there sister is wrapped up in the caper too, as she is the beneficiary of her mother’s policy.

When Hirsh and Church can’t come up with the 25 grand to pay McConaughey, he decides to take Temple as a “retainer” until the insurance gets paid out, because he’s sweet on her.

Taking place in Texas, but filmed in Louisiana, KILLER JOE was based on a stage play written byTracy Letts, who also wrote the screenplay, so its tight plotting was honed in the theater. 

Its lengthy final scene, which will most likely come to be known as the “K-Fry-C scene,” could be an effective one-act-play on its own, as its set in one location, and has only the principle cast members in it. It’s a master work of gruesome violent power, which is going to turn a lot of people off, but I bet they’ll never forget it.

McConaughey, coming off notable turns in BERNIE and MAGIC MIKE, owns the title role. He’s never been slicker or more in control than in this formal speaking, dapper, and, yes, charming part, and it’s hilarious that despite all the gore (both Hirsh and Gershon get the Hell beaten out of them right in extreme close-up at different points in the flick), he never gets a drop of blood on his stylish black wardrobe.

Director Friedkin can be stylistically difficult to pin down. Best known for the well-crafted classics THE FRENCH CONNECTION and THE EXORCIST, his diverse body of work seems to have touched on every genre, but I’m not sure he really put a distinctive stamp on any of them.

When the website kontraband.com recently named Friedkin on the top of the list as one of the “best worst directors,” it’s hard to argue.

Still, he tackles the stupid scheme-gets-skewed scenario with delicious gusto here, even if cinematographer Caleb Deschanel’s camera seems a bit too in love, maybe more than McConaughey appears to be, with Temple’s visage. I mean she looks like she’s 11 years old! The nude scenes almost seem to be pandering to pedofiles. But then, I guess that's keeping right in line with the territory.

Yet after such a summer crammed full of repeated formulas, it’s actually refreshing to see a film proud of its tawdry-ness and unapologetic about delighting in the sick despicable lives of the very bottom 99%.

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MILK - The Film Babble Blog Review

MILK (Dir. Gus Van Sant, 2008)

The purpose and passion contained in this portrait of the first openly gay politician has gathered such critical and box office buzz that the oft repeated thesis that the vote on Proposition 8 may have turned out differently had MILK been released before the election is far from mere hype.


In Gus Vant Sant’s best film since MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO, Sean Penn completely and compellingly absorbs the plucky persona of an ambitious and enthusiastic San Franciscan business man who after a few failed attempts was voted a city supervisor.


With the support of the homosexual community and many sympathetic liberals Harvey Milk fought a fierce battle to defeat Proposition 6 which, if passed, would have discriminated against California public schools hiring gay employees. The film is framed by a neat natural feeling narration in which Milk records an audiotape relating the story of his political career and a few devastating personal relationships on the side.


Much real life footage is used including footage from news reports of the era and photographs that make up an opening montage showing police harassment of gay bar patrons. We are introduced to Milk as he introduces himself to an easy going hippy played by James Franco who quickly becomes his lover. 


They move from New York to California together and the enterprising Milk opens a camera store in a pre-dominantly gay neighborhood. Gay activism helps Milk’s mojo but turns off his companion at the same time he forms heavy alliances including student and later S.F. AIDS Foundation founder Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch with a frizzy fro oddly making him look like a skinny Jack Black).

There is not a wasted moment in MILK as the momentum flows evenly through to our protagonist’s later days. Josh Brolin, obviously now approaching the A-list after lauded turns in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and W., has an effective restless role as Dan White – a fellow Supervisor who assassinates Milk and Mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber).


This last bit is no Spoiler mind you, the film gives us this info up front and I doubt anybody reading this will be unaware of Milk’s fate. With its use of much archival footage seemlessly blended in and touching display of campaign comaraderie it’s a nice companion piece to Rob Epstein’s 1984 documentary THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK.


I predict that MILK will dominate the upcoming awards season and deservedly so; very few supposed “event” movies, especially of the historic biopic ilk live up to their billing but nothing here falls short - the acting, the screenplay by Dustin Lance Black, the focused film-making, and the choice of era music - even the overused Sly and the Family Stone song “Everyday People” feels right.


The best performance of Sean Penn’s career in the most accomplished and powerful project that Gus Van Sant has ever delivered is so much more than must see cinema. It’s such a supremely entertaining and essential endeavor that it should be classified a mandatory movie.

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