Killer Joe review: Orlando Bloom stays cool in shallow revival

1/16
Henry Hitchings5 June 2018

Eleven years on from his last West End appearance, Orlando Bloom stars as a crooked Texan cop in this gruesome Nineties thriller. It’s a bold choice for an actor whose career has been built on playing honourable swashbucklers, but fans who’ve heard that he completely strips off here should be advised that when he does so we see him only from the rear — and for about as long as it takes to say ‘Top marks to his personal trainer.’

His character Joe is hired as a contract killer by Chris, a drug dealer who is deep in debt and looking to cash in on his mother’s life insurance policy. Joe usually requires payment upfront, which Chris can’t manage, so proposes taking his brain-damaged sister Dottie as a ‘retainer’. It’s a sinister arrangement, yet her father Ansel and his current wife Sharla are flaccid bystanders. They’re more interested in the TV than the reality spectacularly unravelling around them, as playwright Tracy Letts highlights the moral vacuity of a society addicted to trashy entertainment.

Although Bloom doesn’t exude enough danger in a role that’s been played with icy charisma by Matthew McConaughey on the big screen, he has an air of savvy meanness. Whereas everyone else seems chaotic — especially Adam Gillen’s manic Chris — he’s courteous and cool.

The scene in which he seduces Dottie, soundtracked by Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire, is grimly fascinating. Yet it’s one of several that may leave a sour taste in many theatregoers’ mouths. The most memorable of these involves Joe demanding that Sharla chug on a fried chicken drumstick that he clasps to his crotch.

The best theatre to see in June

1/10

In the end it’s the shallowness of this two-hour piece that poses greater problems. Only Sophie Cookson’s Dottie has any psychological depth, and Simon Evans’s production never settles into a convincing rhythm. The press night audience ovated wildly, but the play is luridly inauthentic, and this revival misses much of its creepiness and grotesque humour.

Until Aug 18

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