That old chestnut about the banality of evil is summoned up in a numbing collage of blank stares, dull shrugs and muttered consonants.Īh yes, the muttering. Inject believability into the role by stripping his performance of any affectations or decorations.
When Lou is not listening to classical music, he is reading Freud or solving differential equations. To this point, the ghastly protagonist has seemed little more than a particularly ruthless criminal, but, as events progress and his behaviour turns ever stranger, it becomes clear that he is a fully fledged delusional maniac.Ĭertain tired clichés of the malevolent genius (fresher, perhaps, in 1952) are given yet one more airing. In the course of plotting a scam against a local businessmen, Lou beats his lover into bloody oblivion. Robust punters will, however, find their skulls shaken and their spines chilled.Įerily boyish and creepily courteous, Casey Affleck stars as Lou Ford, a Texan law officer who, though engaged to a loving local girl (competent Kate Hudson), enjoys a sadomasochistic relationship with a newly arrived prostitute (equally competent Jessica Alba). Nobody who is even slightly (I mean even the teeniest, tiniest bit) squeamish about cinema violence should go anywhere near The Griftersstill holds that title) but it remains a properly gruelling journey through the brain of a psychopath. Well, it's not the best Thompson adaptation ever (Stephen Frears's
As was the case with Michael Winterbottom's hopelessĩ Songs, the raging controversy has distracted from considerations of the film's quality.
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