Friday Flicks: Is ‘The Watch’ Worth Watching?

Grab some popcorn and check out the movies you should see (or avoid) this weekend.

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Killer Joe

[youtube=http://youtu.be/cxpvzmvFHTM]

Tagline: Murder Never Tasted So Good

There’s a clear case to be made that William Friedkin is never going to return to his high watermark of The Exorcist and The French Connection but, as with fellow veteran director Woody Allen, he’s going through an interesting period right now. His Bug from 2006 polarized many but if you were in the thumbs up camp, you were wowed by the performances he extracted out of Ashley Judd and a then (relatively unknown) Michael Shannon.

But Killer Joe surely ups the stakes by enticing Matthew McConaughey (experiencing a McConnaissance of his own, as he puts it) to take the lead as Detective “Killer” Joe Cooper, the hired hit man with rather sweet manners. He’s contacted by drug dealer Chris (Emile Hirsch), who needs to get his hands on some cash quick. A deal is struck, involving his sister (Juno Temple) and father (Thomas Haden Church), surrounding the mother’s life insurance policy.

The critics think the movie kills, which should be read as a compliment. “Gazing into the abyss has rarely felt so good,” said Time Out New York. “A gruesome, brutally violent and queasy trailer-park nightmare from deep in the heart of Texas,” sums up the Guardian. And Empire couldn’t be more impressed by the director and main actor: “Thanks to McConaughey’s oily power and Friedkin’s unflinching purpose it’s a compelling beast.”

MORE: TIME’s Top 10 Movies of 2011

NewsFeed’s Flicks Pick: There don’t appear to be a whole host of laughs in The Watch so we’ll plump for Killer Joe.

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