This adaptation of Thompson's 1952 novel about a cunning, psychotic sheriff's deputy in a small Texas town locates the killer inside him and immerses us in the cold calculation and horrible logic that pull him from one murder to the next.

January 03, 2011 read full article

What a crock.

July 16, 2010 read full article

Little, however, can save The Killer Inside Me from its worst impulses, its reveling in brute violence that makes it hard to watch and nearly impossible to admire, even though it's carefully crafted.

July 09, 2010 read full article

As for the misogynist brutality, it is indeed depraved, made more so by the fact that its female victims are depicted as loving their abuse right up until it turns murderous.

July 06, 2010 read full article

The question of Winterbottom's intent here isn't easily answered, but the power of his abuse scenes is undeniable.

July 02, 2010 read full article

It's a psychologically haunting portrait of an extreme personality, an amoral, violent, lonely man.

July 01, 2010 read full article

The film, sunbaked noir delivered with disturbing savagery and finesse, does its source material full justice.

July 01, 2010 read full article

Full of nice little touches, but somehow misses the mark when it comes to the big picture.

June 30, 2010 read full article

Winterbottom was right to keep the light and compositions flat and bright and eerily sunny, no matter what sort of evilness Lou perpetrates. But the story should grow progressively more reckless-seeming and feverish; instead, it is methodical to a fault.

June 24, 2010 read full article

Little more than torture porn tricked out in art-house finery.

June 24, 2010 read full article

There is a point beyond which Lou's implacability brings diminishing returns. While I admire Affleck's performance, I believe Winterbottom and his writer, John Curran, may have miscalculated.

June 24, 2010 read full article

It's one thing on the page, where you're almost as horrified by the idea of some person actually writing this as you are by what you're reading. But on the screen, actually watching it happen, it begins to fall apart.

June 22, 2010 read full article

John Curran's script can be faulted for leaning too heavily on the childhood roots of Lou's psychosis, but the movie does Thompson proud. It's a scorcher.

June 18, 2010 read full article

The Killer Inside Me is hard to watch -- occasionally impossible to watch -- but it never looks away from the hard, isolate, stoic killer at its dark heart, and it makes sure we can't either.

June 18, 2010 read full article

You may feel a twinge of sympathy for this monster, a strange and vivid character who deserves all the torments of hell, and also a better movie.

June 18, 2010 read full article

Raspy-voiced Affleck turns in an amazingly controlled performance as a natural-born killer, with strong backup from the supporting cast.

June 18, 2010 read full article

Affleck is playing someone split down the middle, but we're stuck seeing only one side of him.

June 18, 2010 read full article

The Killer Inside Me may be the darkest film noir ever made.

June 16, 2010 read full article

While the individual moments of brutality are powerful, the pacing of the film as a whole tends to lag. The suspense should be suffocating.

June 16, 2010 read full article

None of this makes sense; no character motivation is ever analyzed; and by the time the end credits roll, everyone in the film is dead already. The film is seriously lacking in a sense of redemption, and I couldn't find a moral purpose with a spyglass.

June 16, 2010 read full article