The Killer Inside Me

‘The Killer Inside Me’ is an arty film noir set in 1950's Texas. Casey Affleck seems to reprise parts of his role as the coward Robert Ford from ‘The Assassination of Jesse James...’ even down to having the same surname. His character, Deputy Lou Ford, seems a polite well mannered sort of chap but oh, how appearances can be deceptive. When the son of one of the town's top business men is discovered in the arms of a prostitute (Jessica Alba), Ford is given the simple task of running her out of town.



When she won’t go easily and has the audacity to strike out at him, this arouses more than anger in him and his reaction, to return the blows with interest, certainly does plenty for her too. After they exchange increasingly forceful blows, they fall into bed.



Then despite Ford having the delectable Amy (Kate Hudson) as his girlfriend, they embark on an affair, a sadomasochistic affair at that. One where the Alba rear end gets a regular tanning and some more, as they switch from sex to violence and back at a moment’s notice, redefining ‘liking it rough’, as she unearths his inner psychopath.



Unfortunately some manner of the plot and particularly the occasionally mumbled dialogue makes it hard to follow at times. We gets flashbacks about what happened to him as a child but was he abused, or was he the abuser?



The pair of them team up to blackmail the business man, threatening to expose his son. Ford however double crosses her, which brings us to the real talking point of the film, when the violence turns nasty.



The scene where Alba gets beaten to pulp is probably not going to be everyone's cup of tea. Shocking? Yes. Gratuitous? Maybe. Necessary? Probably. I don’t think a Disney version would have worked.

Then there’s the way he does it, with his fists, while telling her how much he loves her. I love you, thump, I love you, thump thump. Nice. Not.

Then he shoots the business man's son and presses the gun into her hand, hoping to make the deaths appear to be a lovers' tiff or perhaps a prostitution transaction gone wrong. Yet quite how she got to land a prefect shot on him with a broken neck and only one eye... I’m not sure.

The murder pricks the attention of the District Attorney, who seems to have spotted the same glaring holes in the staged double murder. Yet he doesn’t seem to do anything about it. Meanwhile inside Ford’s twisted mind he doesn't seem to believe he`s a bad guy at all. He tries to build an alibi and to frame other people for the murders. However, when his plans don’t go quite as well as he hoped, he’s forced to commit more crimes to cover his trail, including using his boxing skills again, this time fatally on his girlfriend.



Director Michael Winterbottom tries to paint a picture of a seriously disturbed human being. Maybe, he doesn't go far enough because I don’t think he quite succeeds. It’s a fascinating but slightly meandering film that’s not helped by Affleck’s deliberately vague portrayal of Ford and the ending’s a bit weird too.

Still, I thoroughly enjoyed it but needed a stiff drink to get over it.

Nine

Now I'm no fan of musicals you know and personally I think if you’re going to do one, it belongs on the stage and not in the cinema. So Rob Marshall’s film adaptation of the Broadway show ‘Nine’ was not really on my radar but it was clearly on my girlfriend’s. So being the dutiful partner... here we are.

Daniel Day Lewis unpacks an impressive Italian accent and becomes Guido Contini, the man who can’t say no. He can’t say no to his producer and especially he can’t say no to his women. His producer expects his new movie to start shooting in ten days but there’s one big problem, there’s no script. Just like an A Level student with an English essay due to be handed in, Guido hasn’t written it yet, he’s not even started it and with the cast already assembled he’s going to have a problem winging it.



The title, 'Nine', is the number of films Guido has directed. Although the original film that the play was based on was Fellini’s '8½'. The half is because he co-directed some films, but obviously this is too complicated for American audiences, hence the rounding up.

Or... ‘nine’ might just be the number of women he's sleeping with, which is, to be honest, most of the cast. Among which are his neglected wife Luisa (the rather lovely Marion Cotillard), his mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz) and his star actress Claudia (Nicole Kidman, cast as an actress).



Guido, now pretty much a burnt out creative force turns to his women for inspiration. They gleefully spring to his aid in their underwear and stockings, and sing to him. This seems to cause Day Lewis to hang his head and look shameful, miserable, desperate, depressed or whatever and to chain smoke, and to be honest doing it all rather well. It seems to dawn on Guido that not only is his film career stuffed but he has epic women problems as well.

That’s about it as regards plot... then there's the music. Ah. Doesn’t a musical live or die by its songs? Ah. It’s a long, slow death, then. As I didn’t see anyone tapping their foot or humming along to any of the songs, either during or on the way out, I assume the rest of the cinema agreed with me. This for a musical must be a very bad sign. Usually for a week after seeing a musical you have the songs stuck in your head, no matter how irritating and whether you want them there or not. Eventually you have to hardwire yourself into something decent on your ipod and remove them by force. No chance of that here. Even my partner hasn't asked me to download any of the numbers for her... Oh you know Dear, that one, the one that didn’t sound quite as samey as all the others, the one Kate Hudson mumbled her way through... nope, she’s not asked. Did I mention Kate Hudson’s in it? Must have blotted it from my mind, she pops up as fashion journalist and sings of course.



In fact musically, it’s all very democratic because everybody gets to sing, which is not necessarily wise... and get this, they even let Judi Dench, who pops up as his costume designer and friend, Lilli. Judi Dench? Why? Actually she's not terrible and she does seems to really enjoy herself, like she’s stormed the karaoke down your local after several litres of ill advised WKD but seriously, why?

They do get a proper singer in, in the shape of Fergie... no not that Fergie. Stacy not Sarah, her of the Black Eyed Peas. Not sure why on this one either, they don’t let her do anything else, speak or anything complicated and she gets to play a prostitute, I think. Sophia Loren on the other hand gets to play a dead person, Guido’s mother, reincarnated for a chat and yes you guessed it, one last song from beyond the grave.

Somehow they've half built a stage set for the film with no script. This serves to make it look even more like it should have stayed as a play. In fact, it might have worked on stage... or it might not but I'm no fan of musicals anyway, did I mention that. So it's all a bit of a slog where I found myself thinking, I've not had enough to drink. As you may gather, the film didn't do anything for me. Perhaps the whole point is that the film is clever and ironic and actually mirrors Guido’s plot, the one he hasn’t written.

As I said Day Lewis does ok, he’s good even, but the star is undoubtedly Marion Cotillard but then these two are the only characters that are given any kind of depth to work with. Cotillard carries what little plot there is, knowing that her husband is cheating on her but still appearing to be in command of the situation. Her husband needs her, and she knows it. As for the rest... Judi Dench does what Judi Dench does, apart from the singing... Cruz is.., well Cruz.



Everyone tells me that Penelope Cruz is sexy, so I assume she must be, but save for one film I saw her in, I can't abide her or her acting. Sorry, that's not very objective. So having Penelope Cruz's scantily clad crotch waved in my face didn't lift the standard of things too much to be honest.

Then there’s Nicole Kidman... but moving on.

My partner liked it and it did have some beautiful visuals, if you like that sort of thing but I'm no fan of musicals.