Although controversial and not for the timid, this unnerving, macabre tale of a psycho killer has its rewards for the right audience.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 18, 2023

Not the disaster that everyone complains about…A melodramatic thriller that could have been much more. [Full review in Spanish]

| Aug 2, 2022

The prolific Winterbottom has got closer than most to the bleak spirit of his film's source - the 1952 novel by pulp writer Jim Thompson. No mean feat.

| Dec 4, 2020

... t's the depth of darkness and amorality that grips. Definitely not for all, especially those easily disturbed by sheer, raw violence.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 18, 2020

Winterbottom is all about commentary and debate and this vicious character study attempts to strip away the fable of the American dream... Fascinating, but not for the squeamish.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 5, 2018

It does not endorse the violence, glamorise it, or normalise it in any way... But if Winterbottom had shown more discretion, had pulled back so that we might stomach it, at least, it would have been a considerably improved film.

| Aug 30, 2018

I found the novel more interesting than the film, which is a torturous, drawn-out affair.

| Aug 22, 2017

The heralded "violent" scene practically screams "We need domestic distribution!" I don't think anyone in this movie actually likes this movie.

| Original Score: D+ | Jun 22, 2013

The end result is an overlong adaptation that primarily comes off as a complete and total misfire...

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 10, 2012

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 24, 2011

The Film Critic Inside Me ...

| Jun 30, 2011

Affleck is great here.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 4, 2011

An excellent film which takes some big, brave steps in the crime genre...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2011

Jim Thompson's 1952 novel upon which this is based was supposedly unfilmable: perhaps that was the correct assessment.

| Jan 21, 2011

This adaptation of Thompson's 1952 novel about a cunning, psychotic sheriff's deputy in a small Texas town locates the killer inside him and immerses us in the cold calculation and horrible logic that pull him from one murder to the next.

| Jan 3, 2011

full review at Movies for the Masses

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 20, 2010

Casey Affleck delivers a chilling performance as a sociopathic deputy sheriff whose charming veneer shatters as we're introduced to his taste for violence of both the straight-up and sexual kinds.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 7, 2010

[Affleck's] commitment to such a vile character, even in spite of Winterbottom's occasionally questionable direction, displays a fearlessness that is rarely seen in cinema today.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 21, 2010

The violence is not shown in an ironic fashion. It's put front and center and is visceral in a way nothing else is in the film.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 4, 2010

Dark thriller centers on brutal violence against women.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 21, 2010