The Killing Jar (2010)

Pretty Good

Absolutely Fantastic

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Michael Madsen at his meanest, and he can be pretty mean. He's the guy who fondled his razor and described with such relish to the tied-up cop captive exactly how he was going to enjoy torturing him. Then he did it. There was blood all over the floor.If anything, he's meaner here than in "Reservoir Dogs." A peaceful diner at night in the middle of nowhere in which the cadre know each other and a few travelers are having pie and coffee -- right out of "The Twilight Zone." Enter Madsen decked out black leather with chrome accessories, sneering, gruff, commanding. He's older here and his voice is a hoarse crackle. Offended by a dumb local deputy, he leaves the diner, returns with a monster ugly shotgun and blows the deputies head off, followed shortly by the head of the unfriendly manager. A visitor walks in and Madsen put a bag over his head and bounces it back and forth with a police baton before putting a bullet through the guy's head. Another patron dies a horrible death, then another. There's blood and brains splattered all over the walls and the remnants of the diner's apple pie.I won't go on any farther with the plot. It's not an uninteresting story. It carries the kernel of its own redemption. But it's turned into another example of an emerging genre called torture porn. There's something awfully ignoble about it and no beauty. The producers, the writer/director, are trying to amuse and excite the audience by showing violence in its most anatomical aspect.An attempt has been made to turn it arty -- the resounding drip drip of water in the kitchen basin, a racking shot involving the reflection of someone's menacing face morphing into the pattern of raindrops on the café's window. But that's, as they used to say, putting lipstick on a pig.Most of the performances seem to be okay as we watch the images float through the ghoulish gloom. Michael Madsen, by this time, could have phoned in his performance. Amber Benson is memorable as a terrified waitress who looks like a concordance of Sheree North and Michelle Pfeiffer.I'm exhausted by our current penchant for mindless violence. It seems to me to be a debasement of our national character. I thought the movie was more than disgusting but others might find it more enjoyable.

When I say Danny Trejo was going to be in this, I knew this movie wouldn't be very good. I don't know why people like him. His acting is not acting at all. It is like he is just yelling all the time with a stick up his butt. The acting by the others are okay. I think it is just the writing and directing by the director that made this movie a fail in my opinion. Not even 20 minutes into the movie and I was irritated by the writer's/director's inability to understand that showing something is stronger than having an actor follow up with the obvious. For example, the waitress is rubbing her temples which could only mean one thing, she has a headache. Well the male actor sitting next to her asks what's the matter when we can obviously tell she has a headache. Second, when the waitress gets in an altercation with a patron, Trejo, the cook and owner, waits until it is over to jump to his waitress's aid.Finding out who certain people are and the backstory is very good, but all the violence wasn't necessary. It just felt like it was thrown in. You never know why some people do the things they did and you still won't for the main shooter really. If you are into gory movies this is for you and if you like a good attempt at a plot this is it, but I wouldn't watch this again for most of the acting, or directing. Although the guy from lost was amazing in this movie!!

Bad. Bad. No suspense. No tension. Graphic and gratuitous violence. Just dumb. Script sucked. Period. Michael Madsen - normally a fine actor - looks like he has no commitment to doing any real acting. He looks tired, bored, listless...apathetic. Hey Michael - you supposed to be an actor. You can't phone it in my friend. You gotta do more than just die your frock and stroll through the dialogue delivery.Just a joke of a film. Believe it or not - some of the actors were decent. Jake Busey can emote. So can the black dude. But what a bore. I guess it was hard to pull it off with such a low budget. I get it. I like low budget films - with some degree of sense. Not this brainless bore.

SPOILER ALERT.Not only is the description of this movie wrong, but it is so predictable and really kind of boring. It is a Diner, not a coffee shop and there isn't 7 survivors that I ever count. The five survivors not counting Jake Busey who would have made it 6 never really figured out who the other dangerous person was or even if he/she was there until the person admitted to it when only 2 of them were left anyway. Just another excuse for a movie to kill people and show a lot of blood on a cheap budget. It is so obvious what is going to happen because everything is restricted to so few actors in just one small roadside diner.