Killer Joe

This movie is trash. It’s about stupid, terrible people being awful, plotting murder, doing it badly, inviting the devil into their home, and then paying the consequences when everything goes pear-shaped. It’s also deeply, darkly humorous in a way that connects with my own sense of humor. I mean…this is ugly, vulgar, and explicit stuff, nothing I’d recommend to many people, but I did get a kick out of it. This is also the second time I’ve watched it, and I was just consistently entertained at this condescending look at people that Tracy Letts apparently hates with a passion. I have to attribute a lot of that tone to Friedkin, though, finally finding a comedy that he can direct well. It just needed to be extremely lurid.

The Smith family is…filled with terrible people. There’s Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), the patriarch of sorts who works as a mechanic but has to ask for money from his waitress wife Sharla (Gina Gershon), stepmother to his two children Chris (Emile Hirsch) and Dottie (Juno Temple). Dottie is the only remotely good one of the bunch, something of an innocent who’s never had a boyfriend and spends most of her time in her room. Chris has heard through his real mother’s boyfriend, Rex, that his mother has a $50,000 life insurance policy with Dottie as the sole beneficiary. He also discovers a police detective, the eponymous Joe (Matthew McConaughey), who will take hit contracts for a $25,000 retainer.

The problems start with Chris wanting to employ Joe but not having the retainer, even though he knows ahead of time that it’s required. And that kind of sets up everything: Chris is an idiot. The whole family follows along (even Dottie says that killing their mother is a good idea…showing the limits of her goodness). But they invited a contract killer (who’s also a police detective at the Dallas police department) to come along and operate on credit, essentially. The depth of the stupidity and the escalating terrible consequences are where the entertainment, for lack of a better word, in the film.

And things just get worse. Joe decides to take the job because he sees Dottie outside his first meeting with Chris and Ansel, deciding to take her as his retainer. That’s just seedy, but it’s also the kind of consequence of inviting the devil into your home. I don’t think it’s some great revelation that Joe is supposed to be the devil. He’s so thoroughly evil and manipulative, taking advantage of people’s weaknesses, knowing more than them, being smarter than them, and willing to go much further than them. It’s just kind of deeply, darkly humorous to watch him systematically take their lives apart.

There are revelations to be had as well with Chris dodging toughs he owes money to, the mother’s death happening in a way that doubles the payment, and Sharla’s connection to Rex coming out, culminating in an extended bit of exposure as Joe lays everything out in terrible fashion…including the inventive use of a chicken wing in a punishment. It’s horridly grotesque how it all plays out, and it’s obvious that everyone was laughing hysterically behind the camera through most of it. I really get the sense that Letts and Friedkin just connected on this darkly comic level, and it’s why Friedkin chose to work on a second adaptation of one of Letts’ plays after the completion of Bug.

But, that appreciation really does rely on the an audience getting into the film’s deeply sadistic and meanspirited groove. I mean…this is ugly and it wallows in that ugliness. It’s not high art, it has something to say, and it’s actually pretty funny in an uncomfortable, anti-comedy sort of way. It’s hard to explain beyond just saying, well, I thought it was funny when Joe punched that person in the face because of the timing and everything, but, well, I thought it was funny.

And that’s kind of amazing because the two previous attempts at comedy from Friedkin were The Brink’s Job and Deal of the Century, neither of which are, you know, funny, so this third attempt actually hitting the mark is something of a surprise. I would probably attribute most of the comedy to Letts himself and his original play and adaptation, but comedy has a lot to do with timing on set. Just hiring Peter Falk didn’t create comedy on The Brink’s Job, so something has to be said for Friedkin managing the pieces on set here. Maybe it’s partly attributable to him having the stage play itself to operate off of to find where the comedy should be and how it should play out. I dunno, but it works.

So, I’d recommend it to a very, very small slice of the population: people I know love their comedy deeply uncomfortable and in bad taste. Friedkin manages the production well with his focus most obviously on his actors. Those actors all do very well, and my favorite has to be the obvious choice of McConaughey as the titular Joe, enjoying every scummy minute he has on screen. The overall package may be difficult to recommend, but I find a good bit to enjoy.

Rating: 3/4