Greetings again from the darkness. The film is based upon the work of crime novelist Jim Thompson, who is quite famous as a writer and whose works have often been translated to film. This time oft-creepy director Michael Winterbottom is in charge and comes pretty close to creating a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the bits that fall short, very nearly ruin the film.

Psychological crime thrillers can be the most fascinating genre (see Inception),but only when the lead psycho is relatable in some sense and the story is complete. Here, Casey Affleck gives an outstanding performance as the dude you don't want your daughter to date. There is a deep darkness hidden behind his aw-shucks facade of innocence and cutesy west Texas drawl.

The violence is expected, yet still shocking, when it first rears its head on poor Jessica Alba. We feel the first punch. What happens in this first encounter catches us off-guard and leaves us wanting to know more background on Affleck's character. Instead, we are really only spectators in his plan of violence that seems to have no real goal. Think Natural Born Killers. Heck, even Ted Bundy had a real plan!

The creepiness factor is upped a bit since most everyone associated with the crimes seems to suspect Affleck's character, but no one knows what to do or how to stop him. Elias Koteas and Simon Baker (miscast) are two who try. Personally I wanted more of the Koteas character as well as Ned Beatty, who plays a powerful developer against whom Affleck holds a grudge.

Bill Pullman is tossed in near the end to help wrap things up, but mostly the ending is as unsatisfying as the rest of the story. It is uncomfortable to watch Affleck's character, so devoid of morals and empty of soul, but it feels wasted on a small town deputy sheriff with no vision. Maybe that's not such a bad thing ... but it makes for a much weaker film.

THE KILLER INSIDE ME is the attempt to portray the mind of a violence-prone psychopath in the trappings of a modern-day film noir, a la THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE or BODY HEAT. As a film it's a bit of a failure, purely because it lacks a single sympathetic character. Casey Affleck's lead is arresting, for sure, but he's hateful with it and just not very interesting when he's not involved in the film's more controversial moments.

Be warned: the film possesses one or two moments of extreme violence which are fairly sickening in their extremity. I don't mind extreme cinema, but you get the feeling that it's included here purely because the rest of the movie is so dull. It's overlong, for a start, and once the opening murder plot has been disposed with, the movie seems to just move slowly along while it searches for plot points and decent incident.

Far too much is made of the dull Affleck character, the women (Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson) are there to be victims alone, and the seasoned support (Elias Koteas, Ned Beatty, Bill Pullman and Simon Baker) feel wasted.

It all climaxes in one crushing letdown of an ending, an over-the-top piece of (unbelievable) spectacle that feels out of place given the careful realism that's come before. Tonally, director Michael Winterbottom delivers a movie that's all over the place at times, and you feel that he was well out of his comfort zone and not quite sure how to handle the material. It's obvious that the people who made THE KILLER INSIDE ME thought it was a great movie with that finesse of quality to it, but the sad truth is that it's fairly ordinary after all.

On the surface, Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is a nice 29 year old sheriff's deputy in a Texas oil boom town Central City in the 1950s. He harasses a prostitute named Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba) and shows his sadistic side. He becomes obsessed with her. She wants to shakedown Elmer Conway (Jay R. Ferguson),the son of Chester (Ned Beatty) who built half of Central City. Chester gives him $10k to run her out of town. Lou has a different idea. Howard Hendricks (Simon Baker) investigates and seems suspicious of Lou. Lou had a foster brother named Mike who was killed 6 years ago working at a Conway construction. Young Mike and Lou had been involved in a murky incident with a young girl back in the day. Amy Stanton (Kate Stanton) is his girlfriend. Joe Rothman (Elias Koteas) is the union boss.

This is a murky moody film noir from director Michael Winterbottom. I really like the style. It is a bit too confused. I think more on the story of young Lou would be helpful early on. Casey Affleck has the boyish looks which make his quiet psychopath character all the more effective. There are a lot of pieces and characters in this movie. It could be a little bit complicated to put the pieces together.