6.5/10
As before, this movie directed by Michael Winterbottom had a pretty impressive cast (Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson) but went nowhere, but it wasn't really hard to figure out why - the brutal, unflinching, and frankly horrific physical violence perpetrated on the women in the movie is cause for any distributor to run the other way. The movie is based on the Jim Thompson novel of the same name and stays true to his (apparent) gritty, no-B.S. realism. The story essentially is Affleck playing the role of a deputy sheriff named Lou Ford with a need to kill - or abuse, at least. A persistent D.A. eventually uncovers his secret but Ford stays true to his demons to the end. It's an interesting enough, very well-acted story (is Casey Affleck getting the consistent recognition he deserves yet?), but the whole time you can't shake the feeling something is missing - like its main character, the movie is too robotic, too removed, and you never really get sucked in enough into caring what happens. Too bad because it had a lot of potential.
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