The Killer Inside Me

This is based on a Jim Thompson novel (aside- which I couldn't find at my local Borders mad and then they wonder why more people are just ordering books online) and is set in early fifties Texas. It was directed by Michael Winterbottom.

Via voiceover the movie tries to ape the first person perspective of the book's protagonist. As the protagonist happens to be a pretty sick sociopath deputy sheriff (played by very young looking Casey Affleck) with a taste for spanking and beating women his POV can be hard to stomach at times. There really is no one to root for in this film which presumably was the point.

Jessica Alba plays a local prostitute that the local bigshot (Ned Beatty) would like to have run out of town for personal and business reasons. This job comes down to Affleck who doesn't do as he's told and force her to leave but decides to use her in a revenge plot against Beatty and company (after engaging in a sadistic sexual relationship with her).

Of course blood calls for blood and the Affleck character is "forced" to do more acts of murder and evil in order to stay one step ahead of his increasingly suspicious bosses and a one man Greek chorus of recrimination-Elias Koteas.

This movie got a lot of flack for "misogyny". I think that sort of misses the point in this context. Affleck's character is evil through and through and doesn't really discriminate in who he harms. However I think most people (feminist or not, liberal or conservative) are still somewhat taken aback against depicted violence committed against women even as we are neutral or dismissive against fictional harm done against men. That's life.

That said if you do not like filmic violence or really don't like seeing women be the target of extended realistic looking violence this may not be the film for you. Initially I thought Affleck was miscast as a Texas deputy sheriff but his slight frame and baby face juxtaposed to what he was doing gives the movie a dissonance that the director may have wanted.

In addition to Affleck, Alba, Koteas and Beatty this film also stars Kate Hudson, Simon Baker, Bill Pullman and Tom Bower. With the possible exception of Beatty and Hudson I don't think anyone really tried to pull off a Texas accent.

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.