Killer Joe
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Dir: William Friedkin
With: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Gina Gershon
Running time: 103 minutes
AFTER last year's peely-wally festival, the organisers had to come up with something full-blooded to open this year's event. The Exorcist director William Friedkin's slice of Texan gothic will certainly shake the nerves and rattle the brains. Emile Hirsch plays a trailer trash loser in debt who thinks one way to solve his problems is to hire Killer Joe (Matthew McConaughey) to do a deed for him. Oh, what a tangled web is woven when a psychopath meets a family so dysfunctional they need a priest more than a social worker. It's only in the last, over-extended third that Friedkin's film betrays its origins as a stage play. Otherwise, he provides pure cinematic thrills, allowing the characters to fill the screen with their warped personalities. McConaughey steals the show, despite competition from Thomas Haden Church's weakling dad, Hirsch's hopeless hard man, Gina Gershon's lush femme fatale and Juno Temple's little girl lost. Sickeningly violent, Bad Lieutenant bonkers, but undeniably compelling, Killer Joe is a hopeful sign the festival is back with a bang.
On general release June 29
Dragon (WU XIA)
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Dir: Peter Chan
With: Donnie Yen, Takeshi Kaneshiro
Running time: 114 minutes
CHINA, 1917. The calm of a village is shattered by the arrival of two robbers at the local mill. Husband and father Liu Jinxi (Donnie Yen) steps in to foil the bad guys, much to the puzzlement of a detective who arrives later to investigate the incident. Was Liu just lucky, as he says, or is there more to him than first appears? Peter Chan's martial arts movie is fiendishly plotted and great fun (if very violent) throughout. If Sherlock Holmes had written kung fu movies, they might have played out like this.
Saturday, June 23, 5.40pm, and Sunday, June 24, 3.25pm, Cineworld 8, Fountain Park
Leave It On The Track
HH
Dir: Benjamin Pascoe
Running time: 80 minutes
"WE'RE going to kick the crap out of them." Welcome to the world of women's roller derby and a fight between the Hellcats and the Cherry Bombs. Benjamin Pascoe's documentary charts the sport's history and some notable characters from the current circuit. Has its moments, but Drew Barrymore rolled this way first, and more entertainingly, in her directing debut, the 2009 comedy drama Whip It.
Sunday, June 24, 8.45pm, and Saturday, June 30, 5.30pm, Cineworld 3, Fountain Park
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