S.G. Browne

Welcome to another edition of Movie Review Monday. What? This is Thursday? How the hell did it get to be Thursday already? Well, let’s just pretend that it’s Monday because the alliteration works better.

Today is a double barrel entry of dark comedies, which is appropriate because they’re both about killing people. And if you know anything about me, you know that the darker the comedy, the more likely I am to enjoy it. Your mileage may vary.

Killer Joe (directed by William Friedkin) is one of those films with a cast of deplorable characters that is just so much fun to watch you can’t look away. Emile Hirsch and Thomas Haden Church are great as the son and ex-husband of a woman they want to kill so they can cash in on her insurance policy, so they hire Matthew McConaughey—a Texas cop who kills people for money on the side. If you’re not a McConaughey fan, don’t let that keep you away. He’s delightfully disturbing as the titular anti-hero. And if you’re a fan of fried chicken, you might not want to eat it for a while after the climactic scene.

God Bless America (directed by Bobcat Goldthwait) stars journeyman actor Joel Murray (currently in Mad Men) as a modern day Clyde who teams up with a teenage Bonnie (Tara Lynne Barr) to rid society of reality television stars, rude talk show hosts, and generally repellent citizens. While it’s pretty heavy on the social commentary, it does make some valid points about the lack of common courtesy and the decline of manners in a society that values celebrity for the sake of celebrity. If you don’t get some pleasure out of the scene where they gun down four rude people in a movie theater who keep talking on their cell phones, then maybe this isn’t your cup of tea.