The Killer Inside Me

Plot synopsis:
In 1952, Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is a pillar of the community in his small west Texas town — patient, dependable, and well-liked. However, he is a sociopath with violent sexual tastes. As a teenager, Lou was caught raping a five-year-old girl by his adopted brother Mike, who pleaded guilty to the crime and served prison time to protect Lou. After being released, Mike was hired by the construction firm of Chester Conway (Ned Beatty). Mike died on the job after slipping and falling off a beam. Lou believes that Conway planned the accident.
At the request of Sheriff Bob Maples (Tom Bower), Lou visits Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba), a prostitute who is having an affair with Conway's son, Elmer (Jay R. Ferguson). When Joyce objects to Lou's treatment of her, he violently beats her until her buttocks are bruised. Joyce enjoys pain, and she and Lou begin a passionate love affair. Joyce suggests that Lou would never leave town with her, but they devise a plot to extort $10,000 from the Conways. Sheriff Maples and Chester Conway ask Lou to oversee the pay-off. Lou has another plan: he brutally beats Joyce until he thinks that she is dead (she is not), and when Elmer arrives, Lou shoots and kills him. He then plants the gun on Joyce, hoping to make the scene look like the two have killed each other. Joyce survives the ordeal. Then Conway announces his intention to see her executed for killing Elmer.
Lou's reputation begins to falter: his girlfriend and fiancee Amy (Kate Hudson) doubts him as infidel, and the county district attorney Howard Hendricks (Simon Baker), who has arrived in town to investigate the murders, suspects that Lou could be the killer. Lou accompanies Sheriff Maples and Conway in taking Joyce to the hospital in Fort Worth; Conway wants her alive so he can interrogate her. Lou waits in a hotel room while the surgery takes place. Maples tells him that Joyce died on the operating table. Lou and Maples return to west Texas.
Back at his home, Lou discovers explicit photographs of a woman inside a Bible. The woman was Helene, a housekeeper and babysitter of his youth who bears a resemblance to Joyce. Lou recalls that Helene introduced him to sadomasochism, urging him to strike her. Lou burns the photos.
Hendricks arrests Johnnie Pappas (Liam Aiken), a local youth whom Lou had previously befriended as a suspect in the murders of Elmer and Joyce. He was found with one of the $20 bills that Elmer was supposed to give to Joyce in the pay-off; Conway had the bills marked in order to blackmail Joyce if she didn't leave town. Because Lou is close to Johnnie, Hendricks asks Lou to persuade him to confess, but it was Lou himself who had given Johnnie the marked $20 bill as a tip. In the prison cell Lou confesses to Johnnie that he was the one responsible. When they are out of sight, Lou hangs Johnnie and makes it appear as a suicide.
Johnnie's death only makes the town more suspicious of Lou. Journalist and union organizer Joe Rothman (Elias Koteas), who had previously suggested that Conway had Lou's foster brother Mike killed, implies that he knows that Lou killed Elmer and Joyce. Lou coaxes Amy to elope with him as he proposes to her. Due to Lou's violent nature, she acquiesces to his desire to spank her. An alcoholic bum (Brent Briscoe) whom Lou had previously burnt with a cigar has been trailing Lou, and knows that he was responsible for the murders of Elmer and Joyce. He expects $5,000 to keep quiet with Lou agreeing. Upon the day, on which Lou and Amy had planned to elope; Lou beats Amy to death, and when the bum witnesses her body, he runs for help. Lou chases the bum, shouting that he has murdered Amy. Another deputy, Jeff Plummer (Matthew Maher) opens fire on the bum, and shoots him dead.
The next morning, Plummer informs Lou of Maples suicide, convinced of Lou's guilt and heartbroken over his crimes. Hendricks and Plummer try to get a confession from Lou, who cockily refuses. They have a letter that Amy intended to give to him before they eloped, in which Amy begs him to come clean. Lou is arrested, and after a week in prison is sent to an insane asylum. While he is there, he suffers hallucinations of Amy and Helene. After a few weeks, a slick lawyer named Billy Boy Walker (Bill Pullman) has him released and drives him home. Walker has been hired by Joe Rothman to protect the union man. Lou tells Walker his whole story and concludes that he doesn't want anyone else to die.
Lost in his violent fantasies, Lou douses his home in gasoline and alcohol, arms himself with a knife, and sits waiting in his study for a retribution to arrive. As police vehicles and armed policemen arrive, Lou sees a car pull up with Hendricks, Conway, Plummer and the still-alive Joyce. As Joyce tells Lou that she refused to cooperate with the authorities, Lou tells her he loves her, and stabs her. Plummer opens fire, hitting both Joyce and Lou and igniting the gasoline in the house. Outside, the approaching policemen see the house explode in a huge fireball, which it appears Lou has ignited to kill himself.

Tags: mystery, neo noir, cruelty, murder, violence, flashback, revenge, sadist

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