If you like your film noir darker than a Texas outhouse on a new moon in June, and if you don't mind being shocked — and I mean really shocked — then here's your film: "The Killer Inside Me," director Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of the cult noir novel from 1952 by that most hard-boiled of authors, Jim Thompson.
You've got stunning beauties Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson in the cast, along with the Affleck who can act, Casey, who's making a career out of playing morally conflicted types with a chip on their shoulder. Along for the ride is a supporting cast full of great character actors such as Elias Koteas and Ned Beatty.
The story involves a timid deputy sheriff named Lou Ford (Affleck) who's sent by the powers that be in a dusty Oklahoma oil town to run local prostitute Joyce Lakeland (Alba) out of town. She gets hot and slaps him, then he sees red and belt-whips her; the two discover a mutual taste for rough sex, and carry on a clandestine affair while Lou's boss (Tom Bower) and regular girlfriend, Amy (Hudson), are kept in the dark.