Michael Winterbottom somehow manages to make a film a year and, while the quality can go up and down a bit, his work is never less than interesting.
He’s most famous for Tristram Shandy (with Steve Coogan) and the sexually explicit 9 Songs, but my favourites are his Klondike version of The Mayor of Casterbridge (The Claim) and the people-trafficking pseudo-verité of In This World. Already this year we’ve seen his 2008 misfire Genova (Colin Firth, moody and bereaved) and right now we have The Killer Inside Me, a misanthropic Texas noir based on a famous pulp novel by Jim Thompson.
Babyfaced Casey Affleck (the cowardly assassin who killed Brad Pitt in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) plays another Ford, Central City Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford, son of the town’s respected GP and pillar of West Texas society.