THE KILLER INSIDE ME (2010)

This film is based on a Jim Thompson crime novel that Stanley Kubrick wanted to develop as a movie in the fifties, calling it "probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered", but instead hired Thompson to write The Killing.  There was a version in the seventies that changed the setting, and presumably cut much of the violence, that starred Stacy Keach, Frank James from The Long Riders.  This version however stars Casey Affleck from TAOJJBTCRF (IMDB even claims Andrew Dominik almost directed this), alongside a very impressive supporting cast including Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Simon Baker, Elias Koteas, Ned Beatty, Tom Bower, Brent Briscoe, and Bill Pullman.  The plot concerns Sheriff's Deputy Lou Ford, a young man in small town Texas whose 'gee whiz' and 'aw shucks' demeanor hides the heart of a brutal monster; he finds himself surrendering to his most base impulses when he gets involved in murderous blackmail schemes that slowly lead to his complete transformation from human being to hellspawn.  Now don't go taking that literally.  Nothing supernatural here.  But Lou Ford is a very, very bad man who does very, very bad things to people, especially women.  This movie might make you afraid of Casey Affleck.

The opening credits are very stylish, introducing each actor against colorful backgrounds and setting the mood with the song 'Fever'.  These credits rank up alongside the all time great credit sequences, but unfortunately they feel like they belong with a different movie.  This film is too dark and disturbing for the head-bobbing finger-snapping colorful opening sequence that seems at odds with the mostly monochromatic film that follows, composed mostly of browns with the periodic burst of red.  Only Bill Pullman, in a single lengthy scene, seems possessed of the vitality and enjoyable energy that these credits suggest; Bill Pullman needs to work more.

Jessica Alba is a hot, sexy lady.  I can think of several of her films (Good Luck Chuck, Sin City, Into The Blue) that were marketed primarily on enticing people with her flesh.  This is not the sort of movie that approach could ever work for, because in her first scene she gets in an argument with Casey Affleck and he savagely beats her with a belt.  I'm not sure how much, if any, of this movie is supposed to be warped by the twisted mind of the protagonist, but she falls in love with him after this.  Her role is smaller than her placement in the credits would indicate, but most of her scenes concern her relationship with Affleck, and are therefore difficult to watch.

This film is kind of a puzzler.  Its well made and well acted, but it just... is.  Ford is evil and does many increasingly horrific things, we get some hints of why he is the way he is and how long he's been the way he's been, and then it's over.  The film seems to be evil for the sake of evil.  It's frequently entertaining, when you aren't wincing and looking away from the screen, but once it ended I just shrugged.  Director Michael Winterbottom, who gave us this, faced criticism for the violence in this film, particularly the violence towards women, and I'm not really sure if the resulting film justifies the considerable effort and ensuing controversy.