Killing Me Slowly...

The Killer Inside Me 2010 UK

Directed by Michael Winterbottom

Screening at cinemas now

Well that was unexpected. I’d really assumed I'd quite like this movie. A Jim Thompson noir shot by a director who can be a bit hit and miss but who I quite like.

I’m having a hard time with myself trying to figure out why this movie didn’t check all the boxes for me. It’s well shot, lit, directed, edited... it has a nice, slow, leisurely European pacing to it which is a welcome relief to the majority of large screen confections which come our way these days. It had a really nicely designed opening credit sequence which, to be fair, was a lot more pacier than any of the rest of the movie put together. It also had some fine performances... but something just didn’t quite gell for this viewer.

Maybe it’s the controversy this movie seems to have caused when shown in festival. For some reason, even mild S&M with a little brutality thrown in seems to set some people off. It’s not a knee jerk reaction I can really sympathise with and it would be remiss of me not to point out that what is on show here is actually quite tame and nothing unlike anything we’ve seen before on film. It’s all old hat.

And maybe that’s why I was so disappointed in some ways. It’s all been seen before. And this time it just seemed a little drearier than usual. And there’s much less useful movies out there so perhaps I’m being a little unfair... there are plenty of people who really “got” this movie. In fact I went because of a positive tweet on twitter. But for my part I just felt a little underwhelmed by this one. It didn’t make me think and neither was I particularly entertained.

I’m sure it probably works better as a novel though. And I’m sure it’s a really “tight” adaptation. Maybe I should give the novel a read.