drjgardner The Killing Jar has a lot to recommend it, especially the great acting by Michael Madsen (a favorite of mine), Amber Benson, Jake Busey, and Harold Perrineau (he played Damon Pope on "Sons of Anarchy" and Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet"). But what might be a tight thriller gets a little too bloody, to the point where it is gratuitous rather than adding to the story. Toned down it would have made for a much better story.I'm a big Michael Madsen fan and I never tire of his walks on the dark side in films like "Kill Bill", "Sin City", "Getaway" and, of course, "Reservoir Dogs". He's capable of playing other types of roles ("Wyatt Earp", "Species", "Free Willy") but audiences come to expect the violent portrayals. In this film I think he does a lot more acting and his character is not as one dimensional as Mr. Blonde. It's certainly the equivalent of his multi-faceted character from "Kill Bill".The film is a definite must for Madsen fans.

dweebcentric After hearing reports of a quadruple homicide in the neighboring town on the radio, a handful of people at a diner in a dead end town wonder if the mysterious, short-tempered man (Michael Madsen) who arrives shortly afterwards is the killer. Things are far from what they seem. Though a tense thriller, thanks to the advantage of a cramped setting (everything happens in one night at the diner), it is somewhat uneven, suffering from poorly developed characters (like the police officer) and underscored situations. Still, 'The Killing Jar' is saved by good acting and an intriguing story, and fans of Michael Madsen, who appears in usual form as the unhinged weirdo, are sure to enjoy this one.

sol ***SPOILERS*** The news hit's the people in the roadside diner like a shot out of hell!Four people an entire family was murdered just outside of town and their killer may well be headed their way! With the workers and patrons not knowing quite what to expect in pops this greasy looking trucker Doe, like in the song Doe' Ra' Me', played by a moody and a bit unshaved looking Michael Medsen. Doe for some reason fits the description of the on the loose mass murderer and one of the customers in the diner Local deputy sheriff Lonnie, Lew Temple,tries to ask Doe a few questions about where he was earlier that evening.This was a big mistake on Lonnie's part as well as the diner owner and cook Jimmy,Danny Jrejo, who refused to serve, because the kitchen was already closed, a hungry Doe an order of stake & potatoes. They were to became the first victims in the movie of this deranged lunatic. We soon find out that Doe is on a mission. A mission to find out who murdered that family of four earlier that evening and bring him to justice! To brutal and deadly justice! And Doe doesn't care how many innocent lives it will take for him to find the killer! Even if it's everyone in the diner who for the most part, with one possible exception, were nowhere near the murder scene!Effective and utterly shocking thriller with Michale Medsen as Doe at his most brutal and sadistic worst torturing and murdering everyone in the diner until he finds out who the killer is. Doe got tipped off to the killer being in the diner when Mr. Green, Jack Busey, showed up with a suite-case full of cash in payment for the hit job, the family he knocked off, he did for him. The big mistake that Mr. Green made was that he had mistaken Doe for the hit-man that he hired and that soon was to cost him his life. Fully convinced that he's on the right track Doe goes about doing his grizzly and bloody work on everyone in the diner to get whoever murdered those four innocent people to confess and then****Spoiler****instead of murdering him chat with the guy? Doe talks with the now exposed killer about the good old days when the two, Doe in the US Army in Iraq and the killer in the Mafia, killed for county family honor and just for plain entertainment!***SPOILERS*** With enough blood spilled to fully stock a major city hospital blood-bank the end couldn't have come soon enough for the psycho Doe who just for some reason left the one person whom he didn't feel threatened by alive long enough to do him it. But the biggest surprise in the film is not only who the mysterious killer was but how sideswiped or blown way he got by thinking that he was smarter then the person,the lone survivor in the diner, with the gun pointed at him. If he knew how to count or kept up with the shooting action in the movie he'd have known that it's best for him to be able to keep his big mouth shut and not overplay his hand.

Wizard-8 Any movie that boasts amongst its actors Michael Madsen, Danny Trejo, and Jake Busey definitely gets some points of merit even before the movie starts rolling. Though those points aren't as much as you might think, because Trejo's part is small and very insignificant, and Busey's role isn't that much better. I also had some other problems with the movie. The photography is pretty bad, with dark and muddy colors throughout. Also, the movie takes a LONG time to get going - more than a third of the movie goes by, to be more exact. Still, I will admit that once the movie gets going, the rest of the movie is fairly compelling - though I had a good idea of how the movie was going to end some time before that ending actually played out. So there aren't exactly any surprises to be found in this movie. However, I will admit that I have seen far worse direct-to-DVD movies.