Turner's character misunderstood.

Rating: Null/10 (9 August 2011)

Major Spoilers. Please do not read if you HAVE NOT seen the movie.
Without wishing to sound patronising, I think a lot of the reviews posted about this movie have almost pointed out something that isn't actually true. Creating a problem where there isn't one.
To quote a few other reviews; "The murderer will suddenly and stupidly (after years of calculated planning of all his murders) start attacking all of his neighbours." "why would someone who was so calculated and precise just start sloppily and obviously killing neighbour's?" Surely that part of the movie shows just how deranged and surreal the character of Mr.Turner truly is. How do you know that he has been an incredibly intelligent serial killer for years, there is no clue as to how long his killing spree has lasted, the news reports within the movie on TV are incredibly recent. Granted the movie does allude to a slightly smarter than average man with the numerous vehicles he uses, his ability to tell when he's being followed and his seemingly natural friendly persona, but he also makes a lot of noise, hides the bodies within his own home, leaves the personnel effects of his victims lying around and openly implies from an early point in the movie that he knows the kids are watching him. Hardly a Hannibal Lecter level of intelligence.
Why is he killing?. The film makes absolutely no reference to identity fraud or Turner making a profit from his crimes, perhaps his character is actually meant to appear as though he kills for sport. Maybe this is a man that enjoyed hunting animals, I.e the Rabbits that he traps and the Deer that he kills, and simply grew bored and moved onto bigger prey, humans. The way I saw his character was when he does turn savage towards the end of the movie and attack/kills without thought, he is overcome with his animalistic urges and is simply gorging himself on something that he only usually experiences in small doses. One of the major examples of this is the fact that he does not instantly dispatch Julie (Carrie-Anne Moss) but binds her in the basement for him to deal with later. It's a source of entertainment for him.
The writers/producers didn't have him turn psycho during the films climax because they ran out of time/ideas, it was because that's exactly what Turner's character was meant to do.
Overall, the film was a fantastic portrayal of what a modern day thriller should entail. Clever writing, mood, suspense, tension and drama. Seen it twice now and still amazed at how the directors managed to create a very real sense of horror without resorting to mindless violence/gore.