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Title: Killer Joe (2011)
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| Complete credited cast: | |||
| Matthew McConaughey | ... | Killer Joe Cooper | |
| Emile Hirsch | ... | Chris Smith | |
| Juno Temple | ... | Dottie Smith | |
| Thomas Haden Church | ... | Ansel Smith | |
| Gina Gershon | ... | Sharla Smith | |
| Marc Macaulay | ... | Digger Soames | |
| Gralen Bryant Banks | ... | Pizza Patron (as Graylen Banks) | |
| Carol Sutton | ... | Saleslady | |
| Danny Epper | ... | G-Man | |
| Jeff Galpin | ... | Biker Thug | |
| Scott A. Martin | ... | Pizza Manager (as Scott Martin) | |
 |
Gregory C. Bachaud | ... | Filpatrick |
| Charley Vance | ... | Preacher | |
Finding himself in considerable debt, Chris, a Texan drug dealer, decides the only solution is to murder his mother to collect the insurance money. Getting together with his father, the ex-husband of Chris' mother, they decide to hire Joe Cooper (a contract killer) who also happens to be a police detective. The plan is that the money will go to Chris' sister Dottie. However due to the size of the contract fee, Chris agrees that Joe can take Dottie as a retainer until the insurance comes through.
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William Friedkin's career has been up and down most of his career, I guess it's because he refuses to sell-out and go commercial. His most 'Hollywood' film to date has been The Hunted, from 2003, but even that was unusually muted for a film of that type.
His latest effort is yet another adaptation of a Tracy Lett's play (that's a male Tracy), after Bug in 2006, and is choc full of warped, in-your-face sexuality, bloody violence, and humor so dark only the most depraved viewers will find funny. In fact, it's more like a David Cronenberg film than Friedkin.
If you've seen movies like The Acid House, or the 1998 Todd Solondz face-punch Happiness and find them amusing through the gaps in your fingers then you'll be sick enough to fully enjoy Killer Joe.
Matthew McConaughey plays Joe Cooper, an unorthodox Dallas police detective who is 'hired' by petty drug dealer Emile Hirsch to whack his old lady and thus benefit from an insurance policy with his deadbeat dad (Thomas Haden Church in a wonderful performance) and virginal, oddball sister Dottie (Juno Temple). Only they cannot raise the money to pay Joe so he agrees to spend some quality time with Dottie until the policy pays off in waiver of his upfront fee.
It reminded me a lot of an Oliver Stone film called U-Turn, another Texas-based psycho-sexual murder plot filled with heat-waves and perpetual distrust, but was much more enjoyable. The perverse sexuality and dark humor really appeal to a mind like mine, and McConaughey's performance atones for his crimes in various awful romcoms. Joe is a supremely weird but mesmerising character. You never really know what he's going to do next but you can still see the cogs turning as he evaluates every new plot twist. Plus it has full-frontal nudity from Gina Gershon and Juno Temple, which I absolutely do not disagree with.
The film has been slapped with the dreaded NC-17 in the US, which massively limits the amount of theatres that will be showing it. But, indirectly, it will only turn it into a cult film, and thus a bigger success with its intended audience than it otherwise might have been.
I highly recommend that you a part of that audience, it's as far from Hollywood as Friedkin has gotten since Cruising in 1980. Even at the age of 76, he's still on top form.
Edit: I just remembered that U-Turn is actually set in Arizona.