RE: RARA-AVIS: The Killing

From: juha@oivas.com
Date: 15 May 2007


> It's a caper story with lots of violence. It looks to me as
> if the original Oceans 11 was functionally copied from this
> one.
>
> A group of crooks plan to rob the big purse from a serious
> race--as opposed to robbing a casino. Things go right but
> the viewer knows they will go wrong--all they way to
> something bizarre happening to the stolen money.
>
> Not bad, but not great either.
>
> Other opinions, including comments on the above?

In my opinion The Killing is a stone cold classic, brilliantly structured entertainment with terrific acting from veterans like Hayden and Elisha Cook, and newcomers like the warped Timothy Carey. The Killing is to my mind almost like the first neo-noir, instead of being a film noir. Classic, either way. Paved the way for, among many others, Reservoir Dogs which rips off much of Kubrick's superior picture (I like Tarantino, mind you, though I doubt he'll ever top Jackie Brown).

It also has the wonderful add-on of being based on a novel (by Lionel White), and featuring a great crime fiction author as a co-screenwriter
(Jim Thompson), a feat only trumped by Billy Wilder when he had Raymond Chandler as a screewriter for James Cain's Double Indemnity.

JT

JT Lindroos Senior Editor Point Blank Press



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