The Killer Inside Me

Director: Michael Winterbottom
Year Released: 2010
Rating: 1.5

Crazy 'lawman' Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) realizes that once you kill a hooker you claim to love (Jessica Alba), you need to keep on killing just to cover your tracks ... but alas, Mr. Misogynist: you get caught eventually! Pulp-y Jim Thompson novel gets dodgy treatment by Brit Winterbottom - scenes of violent 'lovemaking' are accompanied by lovely music, Affleck gets hilariously punchy-punchy with his mistress and girlfriend (Kate Hudson) - and Ford's homicidal/psychosexual problems get chalked up to (a.) seeing a boy rape a younger girl and (b.) spanking Mommy's sweet, sweet ass (Lord have mercy!). Affleck is a fine actor but his mumbled, proto Robert Ford approach doesn't fit - Philippe Noiret, of all people, was able to capture the moral/ethical conundrum as (essentially) the same character in Bertrand Tavernier's Coup de Torchon, making this another movie in which one waits (im)patiently for the anti-hero to 'get his.'