Filmmakers have historically had a difficult time capturing the true essence of the American hardcore scene onscreen. More often than not, cinematic approaches to hardcore feel inauthentic, cheesy, and occasionally even desperate. With Ten Thousand Saints, directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini approach the subject matter admirably, albeit a bit unsuccessfully, before transitioning into a predictably sweet story about the perils of young love.

As a drug-using hardcore kid growing up in 1980s Vermont, Jude (Asa Butterfield) yearns to get out of his hometown. After a devastating accident leads to him moving to New York City to live with his estranged, pot-dealing father (Ethan Hawke), Jude is exposed to a whole new world. After befriending Eliza (Hailee Steinfeld), a directionless cocaine addict, and Johnny (Emile Hirsch), the frontman for a straight edge hardcore band, Jude finds himself reevaluating his past, his present, and his future.

Equal parts redemption story and coming-of-age tale, the appeal of Ten Thousand Saints lies more in its compelling cast of characters than its plot. Extremely character-driven, the film provides a realistic look at teen life. Though it’s set roughly thirty years ago, Jude and Eliza deal with issues that are as relevant now as ever and are sure to be extremely relatable to teenage viewers.

Because the film is based around a subculture, Berman and Pulcini utilize plenty of exposition to keep the audience up to speed, but it always feels like exposition. As Jude navigates through the film, he explains the concept of the straight edge lifestyle time after time after time as if he were reading the definition off of Urban Dictionary. At times, the dialogue is borderline cringe-worthy and most of the characters don’t appear believably to be a part of the hardcore scene, which is distracting. Aside from the musical scenes, Ten Thousand Saints could easily be added to the ever-growing list of movies that don’t accurately capture the essence of the hardcore scene.

Thankfully, the film has plenty of heart elsewhere, particularly in its cast. Performances are strong across the board, with angst-filled teenagers and their equally confused parents proving both empathetic and likable in spite of themselves. Butterfield and Steinfeld share a charmingly awkward chemistry while Hawke and Emily Mortimer provide a majority of the film’s comedy. It’s an interesting dichotomy between generations, and the way in which Berman and Pulcini analyze two vastly different forms of rebellion is very sharp and interesting. There proves to be a vicious cycle as the new generation rebels against their parents who chose to use drugs in rebellion against their parents who remained abstinent and sober.

While this isn’t explored as in-depth as it perhaps could have been, it serves as the basis for the best scenes in the film—most notably one where Jude’s mother and Eliza’s mother have an emotional heart-to-heart conversation about their children. It’s a beautiful moment, wrought with sentimentality, and it sums up the entire film. Ten Thousand Saints, at its core, is about a group of flawed people who all learn more about themselves through their interactions with each other, and try their hardest to become better human beings as a result.

While certainly not a dark comedy in the traditional sense, Ten Thousand Saints consistently finds humor in plenty of tragic situations. Death, drug abuse, unexpected pregnancy, abortion, assault, and adultery are all explored during the film’s 113-minute running time; and while not a decidedly adult film, it ventures into some extremely bleak territory.

Despite not portraying the American hardcore scene in the most authentic light, Ten Thousand Saints is a well-acted, technically sound film with a wonderful ensemble cast and an adequate amount of charm.

Sergio Castellitto’s adaptation of his wife Margaret Mazzantini’s novel, Twice Born is an overwrought romantic melodrama set in the Bosnian conflict that features two fine actors turning in sick-day performances. The Italian actor-turned-director fails to draw anything substantial out of his stars Penelope Cruz (who he worked with on his previous film, Don’t Move, another adaptation of a Mazzantini novel) and Emile Hirsch, though the unbelievably phony dialog would stumble up even the best of thesps. The egregious absence of chemistry between the leads is damaging enough to sink the film by itself, but unfortunately the problems don’t stop there.

The mostly English-language picture employs both a present-day storyline and lengthy flashbacks in the life of Gemma (Cruz), an Italian with a suspiciously Spanish-sounding accent. Cruz shows the occasional glimmer of her greatness in the role, but she’s capable of so much more. In the flashbacks, Gemma falls for Diego (Hirsch), a globetrotting American photographer who’s one of those loud, grating, hyper-optimistic types that thinks he’s more charming and funny than he is. Hirsch’s forced enthusiasm is only magnified by the borderline-idiotic dialog. “The world’s going to hell, baby. And we’re going down with it.” The age disparity between Cruz and Hirsch is distracting (he’s got a baby face), especially when talks of starting a family arise.

As Sarajevo crumbles around Gemma and Diego, so does their relationship, a metaphor that would be effective if only it were handled with more integrity. The distasteful depiction of the siege of Sarajevo is at times reprehensibly insensitive; at one point a young man is gunned down in the streets while and his friend sentimentally says that “he fell like an artist.” Really? The conflict serves as a manipulative backdrop for the couple’s relationship, and though the script tries desperately to make the metaphor work, it feels shoehorned and iffy at best, resulting in a jumbled narrative. It’s also never clarified what caused all of the chaos. Who’s firing at who, and why? More insight into the origin of the siege would have been appreciated.

In the present-day storyline, a middle-aged Gemma, invited by her old friend Gojko (Adnan Haskivic, a handsome cheeseball), returns to Bosnia, where her son, Pietro (Pietro Castellitto) was born. The angsty 16-year-old finds the idea of exploring his origins repulsive, and wants nothing to do with the memory of his biological father. At this point the story devolves into a “who’s the daddy?” mystery, and while the revelations late in the film are shocking, the road to get there is arduous and drawn-out (the 2 hour running time feels inflated.)

Supporting players Haskivic and Saadet Aksoy (whose character is a key factor in Gemma and Diego’s downfall) surprisingly out-act the leads, exuding the free-wheeling spunk and charisma Hirsch is grasping so desperately for. Thankfully, they both get a significant amount of screen time, which softens the blow of Hirsch and Cruz’s awkward encounters (the love scenes are laughable.)

Another notable strength of the film is the slick imagery, courtesy of DP Gianfilippo Corticelli, who uses slow-motion shots stylishly and appropriately (a sequence with Cruz dancing in a puddle as Hirsch photographs her is stunning.) The recreation of Sarajevo by art designer Francesco Frigeri is equally staggering and beautiful. It’s a shame the rest of the team didn’t hold up their end of the bargain.

In The Motel Life, an adaptation of the Willy Vlautin novel, an intense brotherly love is the only thing keeping Frank and Jerry Lee (Emile Hirsch and Stephen Dorff, respectively) afloat amid a sea of deep-seeded problems. It’s as sad as it sounds, but co-directors Gabe and Alan Polsky infuse their murky dual character-study with dark, underlying beauty that creeps up on you and sticks to your bones.

Frank and Jerry Lee live the life of working-class drifters, living out of crummy hotels around Reno. If Reno is like Las Vegas’ mopey little brother, Jerry Lee is the walking embodiment of the “Biggest Little City in the World”; he’s an alcoholic, glum, disheveled guy with a hyperactive imagination and a kind heart. When he takes the life of a child in a hit-and-run accident, he hits the bottom of his life-long downward spiral. Frank needs to scrape together enough cash to get them out of town before the cops can sniff them out. “All I’ve ever done is fuck up,” Jerry Lee utters to Frank, in despair.

The brothers’ mother died when they were young, and their father abandoned them shortly thereafter. Their devotion to one another is touching, and their rare chemistry is more than fascinating enough to drive the film. With Jerry Lee’s self-esteem and self-worth so low, it’s up to Frank to keep his spirits lifted, which he does by telling engaging, fantastical stories about the brothers leading a more adventurous existence, expressed on screen with eye-catching hand-drawn animation. In a wonderful scene, Frank helps Jerry Lee–who lost a leg in a train accident–take a shower, joking about the size of their respective…ahem…”packages”…claiming Jerry Lee got the good genes. It’s a sorry state of affairs, bathing your one-legged brother in a run-down motel, but the these guys taught themselves to cope, so they find a way to share a chuckle.

Hirsch provides a rock-solid leading-man foundation for Dorff’s more striking, flourished performance. Dorff completely disappears into Jerry Lee, and this may be his finest role yet. He wears his pain and regret on his sullen face, though his repentance is so true and honorable it gives him an air of grace. Garnering our sympathy with this character is no easy feat as, let’s not forget, he’s a hit-and-run offender.

The Polskys and DP Roman Vasnayov (End of Watch) photograph the brothers’ broken lives through a lens that’s just as hazy and smudged as their uncertain futures. It’s winter time in the deserts of Reno, and the filmmakers compose beautiful shots in the snow-blanketed scenery; when Jerry Lee burns down his incriminating car in an empty plot following the accident, the soft orange glow of the flames look ethereal nestled in the serene, heavenly blue and white surroundings.

Aside from the handful of animated respites, the story feels one-note and a little dormant. We watch the brothers prop each other up as they wade through their sorry, mucked up lives, and then the film ends, with a sigh. Actually, the quiet final moments are quite poignant, but the road to get there is so consistently somber and cold that it all feels a bit flat. Dakota Fanning and Kris Kristofferson‘s side characters are well-acted, but add little complexity to the overly-simplistic narrative. The Motel Life feels a little too down-in-the-dumps for its own good at times, but sparks of energy supplied by Hirsch and Dorff illuminate an otherwise dreary film.

The claims that David Gordon Green is going back to his older days, where films like George Washington and All The Real Girls had him heralded as America’s Next Great Director, isn’t necessarily true. Sure, Prince Avalanche is Green’s first film in years that resembles his earlier projects, but the influence from his shift to studio pictures is just as prevalent. Even with all of the quiet, contemplative scenes this is still a very broad comedy, one that feels like a perfect middle ground between the two different sides of the director. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.

Opening with a title card that talks about a Texas forest fire in the late 80s, the film cuts to gorgeous footage of trees being destroyed by a massive fire before showing two street workers preparing for their day. Alvin (Paul Rudd) and Lance (Emile Hirsch) spend their week walking around painting lines on a road that runs through the forest mentioned at the beginning. The job requires the two of them to be isolated from the outside world, camping out along the road during the week before heading back to town on the weekend.

Lance is the brother of Alvin’s girlfriend, and it’s evident that Alvin only hired him as a favour. Lance is a young playboy with only one thing on his mind, while Alvin prefers solitude. “There’s a difference between being lonely and being alone”, Alvin says at one point, which sums up what Prince Avalanche is about. Lance is constantly looking for a way to not be lonely, while Alvin prefers to be on his own. Both of them end up getting what they wish for, but not in the ways they imagined.

For most of this entirely whelming film, Rudd and Hirsch are usually clashing over their different approaches to life. There are some welcome detours in the narrative, one involving a truck driver (Lance LeGault) who has a never-ending supply of alcohol, and a fantastic scene with a woman (Joyce Payne) going through her destroyed home that nails a lot of what Green was trying to accomplish (and it says something that this scene was never in the script). The same can’t be said for most of Prince Avalanche.

Alvin and Lance feel broadly drawn as characters, making it hard to take either of them seriously. Rudd and Hirsch do fine in their roles, but the material they’re working with is lacking. Green’s focus on nature involves several montages of nature shots which, despite Tim Orr’s great cinematography, feel less evocative and more like padding for time. There’s a heartwarming quality to Prince Avalanche that contrasts with the themes of loneliness and depression, but there isn’t enough dramatic weight behind Alvin and Lance’s situations to make the uplifting quality feel earned.

Nonetheless, there’s plenty to admire. The late Lance LeGault is great in his minor role, and the score by David Wingo with Explosions in the Sky helps support the film’s off-kilter tone. Whether or not it’s an improvement on Either Way, the Icelandic film that Green based his script on, remains to be seen, but it wouldn’t be surprising if both films can easily stand on their own merits. For Green, a director who seemingly fell into a slump after Your Highness and The Sitter, Prince Avalanche certainly seems like a step in the right direction, but it’s too light and forgettable to really make any impact.

Prince Avalanche trailer:

Back in May at the San Francisco International Film Festival, I sat down with director David Gordon Green to talk about his new film, Prince Avalanche, starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch. The film—a character study about two road workers who bicker and banter with each other as they tediously paint road lines in a burned down Texas state park—is a notably weightier comedy than most Rudd vehicles (this isn’t one), striking some beautiful, poignant notes along with the funny dialogue. It also happens to be a remake of an Icelandic film, Either Way by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson (awesome name.)

Green is one of the most versatile directors working today, constantly switching between formats. He does comedies (Pineapple Express), dramas (George Washington), television (Eastbound & Down), and even car commercials. He chatted with me about how the post-rock band Explosions in the Sky influenced the film, reinventing actors, randomly meeting a woman who changed the entire film, the late, great Lance LeGault, and more.

So I hear you love Explosions in the Sky…
Yeah, they’re kind of the reason the movie exists. They’ve done a couple of songs for my movies before. Actually, they just finished a song for my new movie that I mixed in yesterday that sounds awesome. We’d been talking about what we could do together again but in a bigger form; they wanted to score a movie. It had been since Friday Night Lights that they scored a film.

I was at a Super Bowl party a little more than a year ago, and I had this commercial in it (the Super Bowl). It was this Clint Eastwood Chrysler commercial. It was kind of crazy and epic. I was watching it with the Explosions guys and I was talking about how amazing that process was. It feels very epic when you watch it, but it was a very stripped down crew, guys in a van jumping out and filming something. We never really knew what we were going to film that morning, but we’d get up and go film a brickyard in San Francisco or we’d film a train track in New Orleans.

I was talking to them about the process of making that, and they said, “You should take that process and make something in this burned down state park outside of Austin.” After they told me about it, I went hiking up there and I thought, “Yeah, absolutely. I have to make a movie here soon because it’s going to come back to life.” It was burned maybe three months before I was there. I thought, I want to make something here immediately with this run-and-gun process. I woke up one day with a title in my head. It needs to be called Prince Avalanche.

So it was location first, then title?
It was process first, then location, then title. Then, I was doing a commercial up in New York and I was talking to my art director friend. We were just sitting around, having a beer. I said, “Ok. I’ve got the process, location, and title. I have a bunch of scripts lying around, but none of them are going to fit what I’m trying to do.” He said, “You should just remake this Icelandic film that my friend worked on called Either Way.” I said, “Is it good?” and he said, “I don’t know, haven’t seen it.” (laughs)

So, I YouTubed the trailer and I thought it looked really interesting. It was just two guys painting stripes on the road. I tracked down the movie with the intent of how I would remake it. I was thinking, “What’s my version of this?” I started getting really excited because I loved the film. It’s a wonderfully made movie. I was trying to figure out how I could put my fingerprints on it.

What are your fingerprints on the film?
I think the emotional elements of the love stories. I really wanted to bring my honest threads of lost love. Their version is a little more straightforward. It’s a beautiful movie: almost all master shots, very little coverage in it, amazing landscapes. But [my version] felt a little more raw in its cinematography and more explicit in its emotion.

I love how contained the movie feels. The only time we leave the burned park is in the shot where we speed down the road to Paul Rudd’s girl, but that all takes place in his head.
Right, that’s not in their movie. That shot is just a way for me to integrate the frustrations of relationships. There’s always something interesting for me to explore. The balance of masculinity in a relationship, two characters at odds with each other, and yet, they’re saying the same thing. I kind of look at these characters as two versions of myself, both I can relate to an incredible amount. There’s the me that’s trying to be manly and mature, and then there’s the me that just wants to get laid and have fun. Those are the stems, and I just tried to find ownership of the characters in order to do what I thought I could do with [the film], as I’m sure [Sigurðsson] did with the original.

The location is absolutely gorgeous, but really grey. Talk a bit about the splashes of color you use throughout the film: The blue lines of paint on the trees, the mustard Emile plays with.
Yeah, there are those primary colors that explode, like the paint on the road, which you see close-up shots of. There’s the blue overalls, the red car. We really wanted to have an animated world. There’s not a lot of film influence in this, but I could cite a couple of them. Kings of the Road was maybe an influence. With our camerawork I could point to the Darden brothers. The biggest influence was Super Mario Bros. We really wanted it to be this weird, apocalyptic, wasteland landscape, and the Super Mario Bros. took over the reconstruction of the world.

Seriously?
Yeah! Jill Newell was our costume designer, and we were looking at Super Mario Bros. and The Sun, the Darden Brothers movie. It kind of became this odd…

Is that why Paul has the mustache?
Yup. We didn’t want it to be too obvious by making the distinctive Luigi, but we had the red helmets…you know, just trying to be subtle about it.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Emile and Paul had not met before production.
Correct. We all met at my favorite seafood restaurant in Austin, and I just started laughing when they started talking to each other.

So they were funny with each other right away.
Well…funny to me! (laughs)

It was funny to me, too!
The best part is that they’re playing characters that aren’t necessarily what people know them as, as actors. In a lot of ways, Emile is comedic relief in the movie, and he’s never done a comedic performance in his life. Paul takes a lot of the depth and drama of the movie, and he’s mostly known as a comedic actor. I’m really proud of being able to take actors outside their wheelhouse and try something that the world doesn’t necessarily expect of them. Show them something fresh. I tried that with [James] Franco in Pineapple Express. He was mostly known for Flyboys and Annapolis—all these pretty boy movies—and then I said, “Let’s just make him as raw and messed up as possible.” I just did a new movie with Nicholas Cage where I took him in a way that I don’t think he’s ever played. [The role] is all about restraint and subtleties, a really tightly wound performance rather than a big outrageous one. I really like the idea of reinventing an actor, at least in my own way.

Before we run out of time, let’s talk about Lance LeGault. Were there things that he said or did that didn’t make it to the film?
Everything. (laughs) He’s amazing, man. He died right after we shot [the film.] He’s an amazing singer, and he sings one of the songs in my new movie. We’re trying to keep his presence alive. Lance was an extra in a Dodge commercial I did out in Tehachapi, California in the desert. We were filming the new fleet of Dodge vehicles blazing through the desert. I kept hearing this guy talk, and I looked over and thought, “Who is that dude?” He was full of tall tales and piss and vinegar, and I just fell in love with him. I started talking to him and I said, “You’ve got a great voice! You ever do radio?” He said, “Do radio?! Man, I sang with Elvis for over 20 years!” I found one of his records in a record store recently. He’s got albums from the ’70s that are amazing. He was a bad guy in The A-Team for a little bit, bad guy on Magnum, P.I. He’s just a wild card. It was an honor to be in his presence. He’s just so larger-than-life and says the weirdest things.

So the way he acts in the movie is really what he’s like.
Oh yeah. He has the weirdest way of speaking. It’s simultaneously scary and funny. When he smacks the boombox off the log in the movie…

That absolutely killed in the theater.
Yeah, it’s one of the biggest laughs in the movie! It’s all him. He’s just wild.

The interlude with the elderly woman searching for her stuff in her burned down house really gives the movie a beautiful shape.
It’s interesting—it wasn’t in the script. We were location scouting for the scene where Paul pantomimes through a burned down house. My AD Atilla and my producer Craig were looking at these houses and they saw this woman sifting through the ashes in her house. They started talking to her, and she was looking for her pilot’s license in the ashes of her house. They were like, “Hang on…let’s go get the cameras.” (laughs) They came and got me and said, “There’s this lady…I think we should film her. She’s amazing.” We got her permission to bring Paul and a camera over there, and [what’s in the movie] is all her story. I didn’t feed her any lines.

The beautiful contrast of the film is these things that are…like, there’s a background that’s very sad, and yet, there’s humorous things happening in the foreground. In that sense, she’s seeing her loss and her devastation, but there’s something just beautiful and absurd about her looking for a piece of paper in the ashes of her home. It’s all Joyce (Payne), an amazing woman of many accomplishments. She was an artist and had a whole room of ceramics that she had built and things she’d collected from her travels—all of that was gone. She was in a very affected, emotional place, shared it with us, and then we worked her into the truck [at the end] which kind of makes her a supernatural character.

One of the beauties of a low budget movie—so low budget no one knows you’re making it, no one’s looking at you, no one’s asking you why you’re deviating from the script, it’s a three week shoot, nobody’s getting paid—is that when an idea like [including Joyce] comes along, you have to follow your instinct and go chase it. Now I can’t imagine the movie without it. But, we would have taken a different journey if we hadn’t met her.

It’s funny, we showed it at SXSW a couple of months ago, and she didn’t tell any of her family or friends that she was in a movie. She showed up with her friend who said she called her at 1pm and said, “Hey, you want to go to this movie at 4? I’m in it.” Her friend said, “What do you mean you’re in a movie?” They show up, and there’s the red carpet, Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch are there, there are photographers everywhere (laughs).

You can really feel the weight of her scene.
It’s pivotal. It’s hard on a movie like this, because I think it’s a really likable, warm movie. It’s the first film I’ve made where I feel like it’s for everyone. There’s no vulgarity in the movie, there’s no violence, nothing questionable other than maybe some moderate conversation. It’s the first movie I’ve made that I think everyone will enjoy. Obviously, we’ve got the great acting talent of Paul and Emile and Lances charisma, but she brings an honesty to it that gives the movie such a gravity that can sustain on dramatic qualities without needing the big laughs of a comedy. All of a sudden, there’s a truth that she speaks that inherently weaves through the rest of the film. Once she shows up, the film can be as funny as you want or as dramatic as you want—you’re allowed to break all the rules at that point. I kind of attribute the movie to her in a weird way.

Prince Avalanche is in theaters and on iTunes August 9^th.

Inequality for All

Inequality for All’s message—about the threat of the expanding income gap between the middle class and top 1% in the United States—is delivered by an extraordinarily charismatic and inspirational messenger, Robert Reich. Director Jacob Kornbluth couldn’t have found a better, more qualified face for his statistics-driven documentary. Reich has an uncanny gift for making complex, vast, potentially confusing ideas and distilling them down into easily digestible morsels. A former Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, author of 14 books, and current professor at UC Berkeley, Reich lends invaluable experience and unstoppable vigor to what could have been a cold, dismaying film. You can’t help but be inspired by his conviction. Reich makes the film, much like Philippe Petit did for James Marsh’s incredible Man on Wire.

Reich’s ability to inspire is made more impressive by how serious and concerning the film’s subject matter is. The United States’ widening income gap is damaging our economy’s health more than anything else, and we as a country need to rectify this quickly. The first step in doing this is to become knowledgeable about how we got to this point, and Inequality of All is a powerful tool in this education.

The graphics employed to illustrate the dismal state of the economy are stylistic and engaging, aided greatly by Reich’s textured voice. The film’s most resonant graphic—cleverly superimposing the economy’s rollercoaster rises and dips over an image of the Golden Gate Bridge—is powerful and surprisingly emotional. Kornbluth spends a little too much time drawing parallels between Reich’s personal life and the US middle-class, but nevertheless, the documentary ultimately achieves its main goal of making us care.

RATING: 7.9

Prince Avalanche

Set in 1988 Texas one year after a devastating forest fire, David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche follows two road maintenance workers (Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch) as they form a bond through shared loneliness and displacement. Though the plot doesn’t go anywhere particularly interesting, it’s pleasantly minimalist and the characters grow on you nicely. Considerably more artful than his recent studio works (Your Highness, Pineapple Express), Prince Avalanche carries genuine emotional gravity, though there are still plenty of laughs throughout.

Green lets loose creatively in Prince Avalanche, casting Rudd and Hirsch in character types they don’t typically play (Rudd is bitter and stern, Hirsch is the off-beat comic relief). He gives them lots of room to work, fitting in quirky character moments and extended, humorously idiotic dialog about nothing in particular. They fuss and fight over the most mundane of issues (Rudd yells at Hirsch for writing in his vintage comic books), and their squabbles quickly escalate toward the end of the film in a battle over who will be crowned ‘king of the stupids’.

Hirsch is hilarious, playing the role of buffoon without ego—he scrunches his chubby face as he strains to articulate even the simplest thought, and eventually spews out words even dumber than his dopey mug. Rudd doesn’t offer anything particularly noteworthy, though he sets up Hirsch like a pro.

Green uses splashes of primary colors throughout the movie (the duo’s clothes, yellow road paint) that really pop on the muted landscape. Explosions in the Sky provide the film’s understated, ethereal score, which lends itself perfectly to the peaceful setting. A haunting scene involving Rudd interacting with an elderly woman searching the burned remains of her home sticks out like a sore thumb (in a good way) and gives the film a unique shape that distinguishes it even more from Green’s studio work.

RATING: 7.2

The first thing I did when I finished William Friedkin’s Killer Joe was take a shower. The film is up to its neck in grunge, sweat, dirt and blood. There isn’t a moment where you have time to breathe either because as soon as the film begins you’re plunged into this trailer park soap opera of lies, cheats and blood money. All the credit goes to the veteran Friedkin who takes out any shades of morality and presents some of the stupidest and most vile people you’ll ever see in a film. A friend of mine put it best. There is no emotional core to absolutely anything in the film.

Friedkin is probably one of my favorite directors to ever work in film. Everyone has seen at least one of his films; The Exorcist, The French Connection, To Live and Die in L.A. (a personal favorite), Sorcerer and Bug, just to name a few. The guy knows how to take an audience on a thrill ride and Killer Joe is no exception.

Joe is played with a frighteningly calm power by Matthew McConaughey who gives easily the performance of his career here. He has never been better in my opinion. He comes off cool and collected, but when pushed in a direction that he doesn’t prefer, McConaughey unleashes a lion’s worth of indignation. In one scene a poor unfortunate soul meets the monster that Joe is forced to become when pushed too hard. Give this guy an Oscar nomination already.

The film involves a family living in a trailer court on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas. The Smith family is poor of course and had no hint of manners present at all. Led by father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) and his wife Sharla (Gina Gershon) they live with his daughter (her step) Dottie (Juno Temple). Both Temple and Gershon are very brave actors for accepting roles like these. They both go to places in this film that takes guts.

One night, Ansel’s son Chris (Emile Hirsch) comes home in the pouring rain to talk to Ansel about a pressing matter. To give you an idea of how much Sharla is aloof too much of anything, she basically laughs off Chris when he complains of her answering the door with no panties on. Ansel didn’t seem to get it either. Friedkin really drives home the point that these people seem to have no moral compass.

Chris and Ansel go to a strip club to talk about the predicament he is in. Chris is a terrible gambler and is in to a local drug dealer for some money he owes. If he doesn’t pay soon they will kill him. A little birdy tells Chris that his mother (not Sharla) has a life insurance policy of $50,000 if anything were to happen to her. Chris was also told about a crooked cop who moonlights as killer for hire if the price is right. This killer is played by McConaughey.

Chris and Ansel then go to a strip club to talk about the predicament he is in. It turns out Chris is terrible with money and owes his scumbag boss a lot of it. If he doesn’t pay soon he will be killed. A little birdy tells Chris that his biological mother has a life insurance policy of $50,000 if anything were to happen to her. Chris was also told about a crooked cop who moonlights as killer for hire if the price is right. This killer is played by McConaughey.

Chris sets up a meeting with Joe about the deal to kill his mother. When Joe says his pay is $25,000 up front no questions, Chris tells him he can’t pay it. Joe starts to walk out but notices young Dottie playing in the street. He inquires about her being his “retainer” in lieu of the $25,000 Chris cannot come up with. They agree. This leads to an extremely tense scene of seduction involving Joe and Dottie in the family’s trailer home that has to be seen to be believed. It’s a very edgy scene that could cause some people to rethink the film they are watching.

The rest of the film I will not reveal as Friedkin builds his entire plot to an utterly outstanding, and very outlandish, final 30 minutes. As I mentioned earlier, do not go searching for a moral center in this film. It does not exist. There is not one redeeming character on display here. Friedkin bathes you in the dirt and filth these people live in on a daily basis.

Make no mistake about Killer Joe. The film is not all serious business. In fact, the film is brutally funny at times. Especially the final 15 minutes of the film which will have some people cheering at Friedkin’s audacity at showing a ferocious McConaughey making a complete meal of the Smith family in their home. The final lines of the film will have you laughing in disbelief and you’ll probably never look at fried chicken the same way again. Killer Joe is one of the best (if not dirtiest) film going experiences I’ve had this year.