Dare I say this is a movie for adults and sensitive others about still another serial killer? Yes. As a thriller, this ranks up there behind "Citizen X" and about at the level of "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer." Owen Wilson is the killer adrift in a world of lower middle-class environments and jobs. Wilson has always been hard to categorize. He has an innocent look about him, a baby face, a high and slightly cracked voice, that with his pursed lips and wavy blond hair would suggest femininity, only his features are re-masculinized by a broken nose that does a couple of zig-zags down the center of his face.
His character is a genuinely nice guy. He's generous. He doesn't have much money but he pays the bar bill of a drunken junkie -- just before he kills her. He's gracious and easily satisfied. When he rents a frilly room temporarily in the house of the mentally ill Dwight Yoakum and the distraught Mercedes Ruehl, he couldn't be more gratified. "It's just right!" He's industrious without being ambitious. He finds a seasonal temporary job with the US Postal Service, sorting letters behind the counter and going odd jobs, but he's so efficient and his character so unassuming that he's promoted to mail carrier.
But he has this disturbing habit of offing people he thinks might hurt others, or at least that's as far as his rationalizations have got him. He doesn't put much effort into thinking about it and it doesn't occupy much of his life space. Violence is never involved. He simply mixes a bit of exotic poison with the Amaretto he carries around in a flask. The victim, who has done nothing to annoy Wilson, just drifts off into The Big Sleep, quickly and painlessly. What a nice guy. No kidding, every time something good happens to him his voice rings with wonder and amazement at his good fortune, like a child's.
I didn't mind him so much when he poisoned the football hero. I never liked football anyway. My game is trying to roll over in bed in the middle of the night. But I was worried when Wilson took up with his co-worker at the PO, played by Janeane Garafalo. She's a nice postal worker and I didn't care for it when, out of nowhere, while she's perfectly willing to shag a bit, he starts treating her like rough trade. He's been nothing but an accommodating gentleman up to now, so where did THAT come from? Well, we don't know. Neither does Wilson's character. In fact, he's quite good. And so is Garafolo in her ordinariness. Dwight Yoakum, who is given to beating himself up, is properly pitiful. And Mercedes Ruehl as his initially unfriendly wife is positively superb. Her performances sizzles on the screen.
I didn't imagine I'd find myself recommending another serial killer movie. They've become a genre unto themselves designed for cretins. But this one is different. The musical score is by Marco Beltrami and doesn't have a single electronic percussion in it, nor is it formulaic. Hamptom Fancher, whom I remember only as Sue Lyon's main squeeze in Puerto Vallarta, has directed it with skill, leaving puzzles exactly where puzzles belong.
His character is a genuinely nice guy. He's generous. He doesn't have much money but he pays the bar bill of a drunken junkie -- just before he kills her. He's gracious and easily satisfied. When he rents a frilly room temporarily in the house of the mentally ill Dwight Yoakum and the distraught Mercedes Ruehl, he couldn't be more gratified. "It's just right!" He's industrious without being ambitious. He finds a seasonal temporary job with the US Postal Service, sorting letters behind the counter and going odd jobs, but he's so efficient and his character so unassuming that he's promoted to mail carrier.
But he has this disturbing habit of offing people he thinks might hurt others, or at least that's as far as his rationalizations have got him. He doesn't put much effort into thinking about it and it doesn't occupy much of his life space. Violence is never involved. He simply mixes a bit of exotic poison with the Amaretto he carries around in a flask. The victim, who has done nothing to annoy Wilson, just drifts off into The Big Sleep, quickly and painlessly. What a nice guy. No kidding, every time something good happens to him his voice rings with wonder and amazement at his good fortune, like a child's.
I didn't mind him so much when he poisoned the football hero. I never liked football anyway. My game is trying to roll over in bed in the middle of the night. But I was worried when Wilson took up with his co-worker at the PO, played by Janeane Garafalo. She's a nice postal worker and I didn't care for it when, out of nowhere, while she's perfectly willing to shag a bit, he starts treating her like rough trade. He's been nothing but an accommodating gentleman up to now, so where did THAT come from? Well, we don't know. Neither does Wilson's character. In fact, he's quite good. And so is Garafolo in her ordinariness. Dwight Yoakum, who is given to beating himself up, is properly pitiful. And Mercedes Ruehl as his initially unfriendly wife is positively superb. Her performances sizzles on the screen.
I didn't imagine I'd find myself recommending another serial killer movie. They've become a genre unto themselves designed for cretins. But this one is different. The musical score is by Marco Beltrami and doesn't have a single electronic percussion in it, nor is it formulaic. Hamptom Fancher, whom I remember only as Sue Lyon's main squeeze in Puerto Vallarta, has directed it with skill, leaving puzzles exactly where puzzles belong.