Killer Joe (2011)

Killer Joe (UR) - Review

"The other white meat"

A young man in trouble from a Texas red neck family colludes with his father to kill off their estranged mother/wife for the life insurance.  When their contracted assassin, the locally infamous Killer Joe, comes to collect and the funds are nowhere to be found, human collateral is put up and the family skeletons in the closet emerge with six shooters blazing.

William Friedkin (The Exorcist) directs from a screenplay by Tracy Letts (from his own one-set play). The film is furious and oily, deliciously unhealthy like southern fried beefsteak.  Matthew McConaughey (Bernie) as Killer Joe is leather creaking deadly with chinks in his armor big enough to shove Big Gulps through.  The small cast works like Chevy-made clockwork, but special mention goes to Thomas Hayden Church (Sideways) as a dimwitted father and Gina Gershon (Bound) as his tramp stamp squeeze.  The finale hits like a double high speed mobile home pile-up, the bright red wood paneling rupturing on the turnpike.

8.5 KFC Fellatio out of 10 (GREAT)