Killer Joe

"Dottie, do you trust me?"--Killer Joe

"Not quite."--Dottie

"Good."--Killer Joe.

I’m guessing that if you’ve heard anything about Killer Joe from those who have seen it, “fellatio on a chicken leg from K-Fry-C” is almost the first thing that will probably come out as will Matthew McConaughey’s smoothly-essayed, controlled, and quietly fierce performance as detective-by-day/hitman-by-night, Joe. 

 ****

When McConaughey brings it the film’s quality is all the better and the stock rises. Every part in the film is efficiently cast, even if the characters are all equally repellent in one way or another. I think Friedkin’s newest film does well at pointing out how Dottie, the virginal daughter of Ansel (the very definition of a person going through the motions of life; he isn’t the kind of guy who can summon the required energy to debate or question the behavior of those around him; he just couldn’t care less about anything much it seems…), has become awash in the moral bankruptcy of her household, not quite “all there”, not her fault perhaps (she mentions how her mother attempted, unsuccessfully obviously, to smother her as a baby), even known to “sleep talk”, often in fetus position on her bed trying to ignore what is happening just outside her door. Ansel’s newer wife, Sharla (Gershon who deserves a ton of credit for what her character endures and does on screen in this movie; her dedication to the part knows no bounds), is so trashy she opens the locked door to their trailer so that Chris (Emile Hirsch) can have a place for the night to rest with no panties, her bushy vagina right in his face. She continues to walk around like this for a manner of minutes as Chris begs and pleads (in his own profane and destructive way) for her to get some clothes on. Chris owes money to a mobster (of sorts) named Digger Soames and was inspired by a conversation with Rex, current boyfriend of his mom and former beau of Sharla's, to have his mother bumped off for her insurance policy, set at $50,000, the beneficiary Dottie. The value of her life was meaningless (to even Dottie who gives her endorsement by saying she thought it was a great idea) and those who talked about murdering her weren’t very guilt-stricken about this idea as much as Joe claiming Dottie as a “retainer” for killing the mother because Chris didn’t have his hit-money up front before the deed was finished.

Friedkin’s films often show a fascination with the dark side of human nature and the evil that man does to his/her fellow man. Ansel doesn’t have a backbone and even when he pushes Chris around his anger isn’t all that particularly fiery. Chris is almost diminutive to me, such a little man, a puny thing that can be easily pummeled, but despite serving as a punching bag to the likes of Joe and especially Digger's henchmen, he keeps getting back up. He can take a licking and keep on ticking (sorry, this was just too easy a phrase to pass up).

Despite the recognition for McConaughey’s performance—and he’s mesmerizing and coolly intense—to me, Juno Temple, as the “bargaining chip” of the negotiating murder (and who Joe falls hard for and Chris attempts to shield from him, to no avail I might add…) steals the film as Dottie. Dottie’s child-like and says off-the-wall things like “Babies”, but because she is authentic despite being a bit “slow", can often be convinced with little nudging to do as she is told, Joe becomes enamored by her.  She doesn’t have anything to hide from him (see what Joe does to Sharla because she has...) and has this way of talking to him, using past experiences in conversation that is perhaps a breath of fresh air to him because his world is so immersed in non-stop death and crime, while Dottie simply speaks what’s on her mind.

It is only right that Joe’s first encounter with any of the film’s clan should be with Dottie who asks him almost immediately if he will be killing her mother. He’s practically drawn to her from the very first time he lays eyes on her (she is practicing her karate while watching a martial arts actioner). He can be comfortable around her. No mind games are necessary.

Chris has a face colored and wounded from the life he had chosen, having endured many a punch, bloody noses and loose teeth commonplace. After Digger’s boys give him a good roughing up, Chris walks with a limp and this is a constant reminder that his fate could get a lot worse if that money isn’t paid to him. Chris' opening scene has him beating on Ansel's door, lots of "open the GD door", swapping insults with Sharla, and plopping on the coach as if he owned the place. I'm pretty sure this is standard. Chris fucks up in his day-to-day life, returning to papa's home to crash for a day or two before heading into another situation certain to provide drama and turmoil.

Ansel (Hayden Church, who performs as if stoned throughout) is a dope who can be manipulated and conned easily, by his son and wife. He agrees to cooperate in Chris’ plan but is insistent that Sharla get a share of their profits if Dottie is to receive the money from the life insurance. When Joe enters the picture, Ansel does what he says, never resisting or disagreeable when things take a turn for the worse and the money that was supposed to go to Dottie was instead made out to the mother’s boyfriend, Rex. Because Joe performed a service (that is what killing a human being is to Joe, a service), he believes in getting paid what is his, and while Rex seems to be on the road to riches, just having to cash the check, Joe will infiltrate this bliss; Joe will intrude upon Rex’s payday (Rex is not someone who we see much of; he doesn’t really figure prominently in dialogue scenes, but he’s often on the lips of the protagonists and certainly seems to leave a mark on the lives of the clan) and return to the trailer of Ansel, with some questions for Sharla. Sharla’s Freudian slip about $100,000 is the genesis, along with certain pictures found on Rex’s person, in the chicken leg faux blow job.

In order to see that fairness is secured and Joe is awarded for his services, Dottie will be his prize. But what does Dottie feel about herself being used as if property to be turned over from one owner to another; isn’t she an individual with her own right to choose? Chris has this rather creepy incestuous dream that frightens him, and I think Friedkin does enough to establish that she is “more to him” than just a sister he wants to protect. Or that’s the vibe I had when watching the film. Joe is allowed, much to Chris’ reluctance, to “date” Dottie and the dinner takes a sexual turn with Joe wanting her to remove her clothes and put on a dress she planned on wearing.

To me, McConaughey’s character is fascinating in how he assumes control of people and situations; that this is part of why he’s a detective in the Dallas Police Department, I felt. Being a cop and killer, along with his confidence and steely resolve, Joe can walk into a trailer, scan the characters and their abode, observe the dynamic of this family, and see that if push comes to shove he can dominate them. He does. I mean, my God, at the end Ansel and Sharla are rooting Joe to destroy Chris, the whole night descending into chaos, with Dottie gaining access to a dropped gun while the two men who are fighting for her possession. Joe actually takes a can of vegetables, using it as a weapon to bash in Chris’ face. Dottie, instead of stopping Joe, points the gun at her own family!

Then after bullets embark on a particular destination, she makes an announcement and Joe couldn’t be more pleased! Well, this is the life of a trailer park family on the outskirts of Dallas, teetering over the edge thanks to Chris’ gambling debt, Sharla’s extracurricular sexcapades, and Ansel’s lack of care for anything. Dottie could do worse, I guess, with Joe. In weights and balances, would a life with Joe be any worse than stuck in the house with Sharla walking around without panties or Ansel boozing it up while watching monster trucks on the flat screen (I almost used boob tube; if this were the 80s that term would be more appropriate)? Chris certainly doesn’t seem to be an ideal family member to live your life alongside, planning to leave for Mexico (still a sentiment felt by those running away, Mexico is that dream place of escape from the storm…why? I dunno) he’d fall into another psychological trap or fail in any attempt to correct his morally dubious lifestyle choices. There’s plenty of local criminal kingpins out there not just Digger Soames.

So the film just ends as two people, I guess, may be on the road to a warped marriage and child-raising together. I didn’t know what to think. I guess that’s the point. What a movie. I wouldn’t want to spend no more time with these people than the running time allows and once it’s over I wanted to wash them off. This movie has a cop moonlighting as a hitman, and he’s easier to like than those whose life he becomes a part of. 

McConaughey has this ability to command attention when he appears on screen, but why Killer Joe is one of his finest hours as an actor is how he reins in the scenery chewing hamfistedness often veering its ugly head in his work. Even when he is devouring the scenery, McConaughey is watchable, even hard to turn away from. I hate passionately the fourth Ken Henkel-directed Texas Chainsaw film but McConaughey’s part in it, so bizarre and out of control, remains on the brain after it is over; he has that. The mock fellatio scene has McConaughey mimicking someone actually getting a blow job, but even here he doesn’t overdo it. He could have, though. It is still a scene I myself could barely watch! Even though it isn’t an actual blow job, how sleazy and demeaning it is, even if the person having to perform isn’t so impartial towards such activities, weighs heavy during the scene. Regardless of how horrible a person she might be, did even Sharla deserve that? Okay, maybe some enjoyed that because of how horrible she is. Whatever the case, Killer Joe and Chicken Fellatio are certain to be identifiable with each other time immemorial. 

For my enjoyment, the little dialogue scenes are more interesting and compelling than those explosive outbursts of violence, especially as Joe sizes up Dottie and she just asks him what comes off her mind, right off the assembly line. He’s careful with exactly what he says while she’s just full of questions, hoping for anecdotes about the life of a detective and how different it is from how he is portrayed on the screen. How McCaughey can grip you is one such scene where Dottie asks Joe about a personal experience on the job, with him tell her of a crazy setting his genitals on fire to prove a warped point. Seeing Chris and Ansel in the bright-lit strip club conversing about killing the mother/ex-wife as if it were squashing a bug for profit is another such scene that is a point of emphasis on characters discussing. There’s the dinner date (my favorite, obviously) where Joe wants Dottie to do as he says, gaining an erotic charge in the process. I think these are where the “stage play” part of the movie is most visible.

You know what I think? I think, while waiting for Chris who isn’t there, talking with Dottie before accepting the job to murder the mother, he was convinced to snuff her out after his meeting the young woman, her telling him about almost dying from the suffocation as a child. This is also where I think he fell hard for her.

While I have nothing against Canada since some seriously great shooting spots are located there, I am glad that directors are taking their films to places like Louisiana (the outskirts of Dallas is actually a little place in Louisiana), among other Southern locations. Living in Mississippi, I feel that there are some great locations that are perfectly suitable for filming movies about the various natures of human darkness and compelling themes that comment on life during the era of the downturning economy. Or just human nature in general, the variety of characters that populate our nation, there’s locations in such places as Louisiana (where tax breaks and such allow filmmakers to shoot there and save a buck or two besides Canada) that can provide lurid, sordid, impoverished, or even rich backdrops. Trains taking to the tracks with scarcely populated gravel roads perfect as hubs for beer-belly hick druglords/mobs on/in Harleys and Ford trucks, derelict, graffiti-walled buildings in disrepair, dirt-stain walled bars with a lonely pool table (and the relic of a pinball machine stuck in a corner and left to rot; there’s also a shopping cart!) where barflies congregate to shoot the shit, bridges, playgrounds where the kids laugh and play as Chris runs frenetically from bikers working for Digger to get what is theirs, and lots of ramshackle neighborhoods with mailboxes that tilt at an angle. Friedkin is a master at using the real and giving his stories and characters surroundings that complement the plots and people featured in his movies.

 

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Juno Temple is not an actress I'm overly familiar with, but she certainly left an impression on me and Friedkin's camera just adores her. Her hair, whether frazzled, disheveled, or sprouting outward, it is amazing how Temple remains an eyeful, and her innocence and sense of affability despite all the hell going on around her actually makes her endearing. You know why Joe finds her so to his liking...