It does not endorse the violence, glamorise it, or normalise it in any way... But if Winterbottom had shown more discretion, had pulled back so that we might stomach it, at least, it would have been a considerably improved film.

This adaptation of Thompson's 1952 novel about a cunning, psychotic sheriff's deputy in a small Texas town locates the killer inside him and immerses us in the cold calculation and horrible logic that pull him from one murder to the next.

It's a violent film about violence, but that makes it truthful.

Although controversial and not for the timid, this unnerving, macabre tale of a psycho killer has its rewards for the right audience.