slopoke67 This is a brutal -- at times hard to watch -- study of a family tearing itself apart in the worst way. Matthew mcconaughey is in top form as one of the most disgusting characters i've ever seen in a movie. This is definitely not one to step easily into as it is very very disturbing but for those with a strong stomach and a taste for something adventurous and different, i highly recommend this one.

unitedcapt The movie is well made, but by the end, I found it to be so over the top with the graphic, needless violence and to a lesser degree, inappropriate sexual content. I was enjoying the movie until it begins building to a point where it was uncomfortable to watch the exploitation of a young girl by a father-aged culprit. We are never told exactly how old she is- but she could be as young as 16, so I found this part of the story a problem.The violence is average, movie-level action until a few scenes where it becomes too much and disturbing. I'm sorry that our culture now finds this stuff acceptable and entertaining. I'm 59 years old and no prude, but it seems that Hollywood keeps pushing their content to places that used to be simply wrong. The millennial crowd are becoming desensitized to this and I'm sure that the younger, school aged crowd are as well. This film is not for them, but I know they watch. I don't really understand why a movie like this is accepted by the same people who feign outrage at a fraction of the violence against women and children in real life.

Andrew Gold Killer Joe is a roller-coaster of a movie. At first it seems like a dark comedy, then a crime drama plot starts to uncover, and by the end it becomes downright terrifying. I'm a sucker for these kinds of movies and Killer Joe absolutely nails everything it goes for. This kind of story couldn't be pulled off without the right director. Thankfully William Friedkin knocks it out of the park. You can smell the white trash emanating from the screen. Every detail of every action is given the right amount of attention; every shot has purpose. Not one second is gone to waste. And in order for a story like this to truly resonate you'd need competent actors, and I don't think you could find a more perfect cast for Killer Joe if you tried. McConaughey is absolutely mesmerizing as this badass detective who's a hit-man on the side. The story revolves around a trailer trash family and their plan to exploit an insurance policy on the husband's ex-wife because the son got wrapped up in a bad drug deal, so they hire Killer Joe to do the job. Little do they know, Killer Joe does not f*ck around. It's a graphic movie but it's not gratuitous. There's a reason for everything that is shown. And the narrative slowly builds to an explosive climax that leaves you flabbergasted. Seriously, the final scene in this movie which is about 10 minutes long, is absolutely phenomenal. Shocking, riveting, unsettling. Matthew McConaughey is downright villainous in this role. It's hard to call him a "villain" because he's straightforward in his motivations, much like it's hard to call the family the "heroes" because they're a bunch of moronic assholes, except the daughter who just doesn't know any better. The line between good and evil is blurred to the point of nonexistence, with Joe epitomizing this duality being the half detective half gun-for-hire hard-ass that he is. It's quite poetic, really. The characters in this movie are scum, and they all get what's coming to them.Killer Joe is a lot of things, but one thing it's not is scatterbrained. It's entirely focused and cohesive. All the genres it glosses over fit right into this depraved story arc, and it grips you to the screen from beginning to end. This movie certainly isn't for everyone, but if you can stomach Killer Joe, you won't soon forget it.

Dan Franzen (dfranzen70) Chris Smith has a problem. He owes a lot of money to some bad men, his dad can't loan him the cash, and he's sort of a lowlife. So he hatches a plan to hire a guy to kill his mom so that his younger sister Dottie can get the insurance settlement. This is never a good plan in the movies, and probably not in real life, either. As you may well deduce, things do not go as planned in this excellent crime thriller from an old hand, director William Friedkin.Chris (Emile Hirsch) knows a guy who knows a guy. The second guy is Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a Dallas police detective who moonlights as a hired killer. Nice work if you can get it, as they say. The intimidating Cooper lets it be known that he wants part of his fee upfront, and it's not a small amount, as a retainer. On the one hand, it's a heck of a lot smaller than the insurance payout will be. On the other hand, neither Chris, his beaten-down dad Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), nor his stepmother Sharla (Gina Gershon) has the money - they were counting on the insurance to be able to pay off Killer Joe. These people are not adept at project planning.So Joe, rather than simply walk away from a situation from which he can't really benefit, comes up with an alternative: the family will "loan" him Dottie (Juno Temple), a twentysomething virgin (I know, right?) who's best described as being terminally naive. Now, a normal family might reject this idea outright: What father in his right mind would let an acknowledged killer have his way with his daughter? Well, these aren't normal folks. Besides, they got a killing to attend to.As you may logically conclude, once that little line of selling out your kinfolk has been crossed, there's no turning back. We know full well we're in for a heap of double crossing. And a lot of yelling and screaming. And, as a matter of fact, blood and deadness. So although, on the surface, the plot may look like it's from a low-rent Cinemax feature, the surprising intensity and viciousness of McConaughey and the remarkable supporting cast (particularly Gershon) drive this story a long, long way. Even the writing (by Tracy Letts, who wrote the play on which the movie is based) is crisp and plausible but not overly predictable. Killer Joe is a grimy, grisly, dusty, and foul-mouthed minor classic, presided over by an unlikely bad seed: Matthew McConaughey.