Killer Joe

The second collaboration between playwright/screenwriter Tracy Letts and director William Friedkin provided Mathew McConaughey with the best entry of his “McConaissance”—the series of acclaimed dark roles the former romcom pretty boy actor made between 2011 and 2014 that redefined his stardom and range. McConaughey plays the titular slick Texas lawman who is a contract killer on the side. The NC-17-rated picture goes out of its way to be over-the-top in terms of its violent and sexual content, but where it really oversteps is in its depiction of how stupid all the characters (except Joe) are. I can never get all that interested in a movie where everyone is stupid, even if they are occasionally funny, and this picture fits this unfortunate pattern. Plus, much of the fighting is disappointingly staged for a Friedkin movie (fake punches and the like). The sexual relationship between Joe and the young, "slightly touched" daughter of the family (played by Juno Temple) is the most unsettling relationship in the picture. Their inexplicable bond is never developed beyond the shock value of their first encounter. The film’s entire third act is comprised of one grand extended scene. What surrounds this memorable material neither sets it up, opens it up, or contextualizes it well enough to justify itself. I do appreciate Friedkin’s attempt to do something different from his usual strict adherence to a theatrical play's stage-bound qualities, especially since this is his second adaptation of a Tracy Letts play. But there just isn’t enough here, apart from one great, long scene of Southern-fried-Gothic exuberance with a disappointing finish.