A crime noir movie based on a 1952 novel. Stars Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson.
The story: a shariff's deputy begins an affair with a prostitute. She is going to blackmail the son of a local businessman but the deputy makes it look like they have killed each other. He seems to have gotten away with it, but then everything begins to unravel.
Was it good?
No. It's a weird movie. On the surface it sounds like it should be a thriller, but it is so slow moving that it's more of a character piece, but as a character piece it feels kind of...nothing. I mean, they have the deputy into rough sex (which his mom got him involved in...yikes!) so maybe they are trying to do the mind of the sociopath stuff, but they never really get inside this guy's head. They never get inside the heads of the people around him. It's just an oddly empty movie.
For instance, when he kills the prostitute/businessman's son it isn't clear if he is doing it for the money (which he doesn't seem to need) or because he blames the businessman for his brother's death...and the subject never really comes up again. You would think this brutal act -- he beats the prostitute to death -- would be strongly connected to something, but it isn't. At the same time he isn't this guy just going around and randomly killing people, so it's hard to say he just does it for the sake of killing.
A lot of other choices are odd or just disconnected. You would think that if this is more of a character piece then they would try to get inside his mind more, but even as the police close in on him we are always oddly distant. Even at the end, when it turns out **** SPOILER (inviotext -- highlight to read) *** the prostitute is alive, she doesn't tell the police anything even though he tried to beat her to death...and so he kills her anyway and they die in a hail of bullets and fire (he rigs the house to burn) **** END ***
I can see why an actor like Casey Affleck might want to play his role -- a nice guy on the outside who is actually a manipulative killer -- but why the hell would Jessica Alba or Kate Hudson want their roles, which basic just show them in bed with the guy and then getting beaten to death? I know the director has had some acclaim with movies competing in Cannes, but that's enough to get these actresses to take roles like this? Really?
For me, compared to great psychological thrillers like PSYCHO, this movie feels incredibly passive. And considering how much sociopath stuff is out there, with movies and crime tv shows, this movie just didn't add anything.
*** AVOID ****
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