Killer Joe

When a debt puts a young man's life in danger, he turns to putting a hit out on his evil mother in order to collect the insurance.
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Emile Hirsch plays a desperate Texas debtor who plots to kill his mother, with help of his family (Thomas Haden Church, Gina Gershon). They hire a crooked cop (Matthew McConaughey) to do the job, but Killer Joe asks for their teenage daughter (Juno Temple) as a "retainer."

Programmer's Note
A potent cocktail of mayhem, sex and betrayal, Killer Joe marks a glorious return for director William Friedkin. This ruthless and thoroughly enjoyable thriller marks the second collaboration between Friedkin and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Tracy Letts, following the 2006 film adaptation of Bug.

Chris (Emile Hirsch) is broke, desperate and not very bright — a classic dangerous combination. He barges into his father’s trailer with the only plan he can think of: murder. If they kill his mother, they can collect enough insurance money to settle his drug-dealing debts and escape their squalid little life. He even has a man to do the job: a cold, cowboy-styled Dallas detective named Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), who moonlights as an assassin.

But Chris and his father (Thomas Haden Church) can’t come up with the deposit Joe needs to do the deed, so Joe demands a retainer: Chris’ teenaged sister Dottie. Played to perfection by Juno Temple, Dottie is both virginal and vengeful. She eventually accepts her role as Joe’s bounty, but not without exacting her own price. As the plot lunges into more and more brutal territory, her bizarre relationship with the killer takes on a sweet but curdled tang.

Faithfully adapted from Letts’ 1993 debut play, Killer Joe is soaked with lurid, disturbing potential; some scenes go well beyond the bounds of good taste. But that is also its pleasure. In the hands of a master like Friedkin, McConaughey calibrates his performance exactly between seduction and menace. Hirsh, Temple and Church also rise to the challenge of Friedkin’s pulpy, film-noir fun, but it’s Gina Gershon, playing Chris’ volatile stepmom Sharla, who emerges as the heart of this film.

The French Connection and The Exorcist alone are enough to secure Friedkin’s reputation. But he has built a career beyond those seventies classics, probing time and again into the greed and desperation that fuel violence. It should come as no surprise that one of his finest works, Sorcerer, is a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Wages of Fear. Like that film, Killer Joe is remorseless, right up to its radical final scene.
Cameron Bailey

Director's Bio William Friedkin was born in Chicago, Illinois. His feature films include Good Times (67), The Birthday Party (68), The Night They Raided Minsky’s (68), The Boys in the Band (70), The French Connection (71), which earned him an Academy Award® for best director, The Exorcist (73), Sorcerer (77), The Brink’s Job (78), Cruising (80), Deal of the Century (83), To Live and Die in L.A. (85), Rampage (87), The Guardian (90), Blue Chips (94), Jade (95), Rules of Engagement (00), The Hunted (03), Bug (06) and Killer Joe (11).