Media

Home Theater Movie Renter's Guide - February, 2012

"Texas Killing Fields" (Blu-ray) - Reviewed by Jim Milton

Synopsis

The movie follows detective Souder (Worthington), a homicide detective in a small Texan town and his partner, a transplanted New York city cop (Morgan) as they track a sadistic serial killer dumping his victims mutilated bodies in a nearby marsh that the locals call the “killing fields”. Based on true events, the detectives must find the killer before he murders his latest kidnap victim, the young female friend of Souder...and time is running out!

Commentary

The film opens with the over used phrase, "Inspired by true events." That’s just a fancy way of saying the story took place in Texas…the rest is completely made up. I don’t mind so much as long as the story is compelling, but this story left me with way more questions than it answered. What was the motivation of the cops and killers? Was the case ever solved? What is the back story to the main characters? If it is any consolation, this is about the best acting I have seen from Worthington. Still, the story could have been trimmed by about 30 minutes and still had time to tell this tale. Admittedly, after seeing Morezt in Kick-Ass and Let Me In, I am convinced she is going to become an actor of some stature. Her subtle, but solid acting here carries her character well into the realm of believability.

Technical

The overall picture is very good, with only the darker scenes becoming noisy with film grain. Sound quality was also on par, with crisp dialog and good use of surrounds during the rainy scenes and car chase scenes. Nothing outstanding, but not bad either.

Extras

Trailer and audio commentaries from the director.

HDTV