The Killing
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Movie Reviews of The Killing
Movie Review: Great Characters In Here!,
Summary: 5 Stars
Director Stanley Kubrick is best known for "2001: A Space Odyssey." "A Clockwork Orrange" or "The Shining" but I always found this to be my favorite of his films. This is film noir at some of its best: a tight no-nonsense story with tragic consequences, some of the best film noir actors in the business and great cinematography, which looks even better on DVD.
Sterling Hayden is the gang leader in this heist film and the big man was up to the task as he usually was in these kind of crime films. He wasn't as rough a character as he was in "Asphalt Jungle," but his role reminded me of that film.
What made this movie so appealing to me were four very interesting character actors: Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor, Kola Kwariani and Ted de Corsia. Few people had those loser-type film noir characters down pat as well as the tough-talking Windsor and the meek and wimpy Cook. They played a husband-and-wife team here: that's film noir heaven!
Kwariani plays a burley chess-playing wrestler who fights six cops at one time and de Corsia is a long-distance racist rifleman who talks through clenched-teeth and shoots a racehorse! As I said, some very interesting characters here.
This film is full of surprises and always fun to watch.
Movie Review: There's nothing I wouldn't do for Johnny
Summary: 5 Stars
Take a bad cop, a $5 Win racetrack window operator who married to a woman way out of his league, a track bartender with a beloved but sickly wife, and an operator who's bankrolling the operation. Mix them all together, dangle a juicy multi-million dollar bundle of money in a racetrack counting room and add Johnny. Johnny's had plenty of time to think about it in prison, and Johnny's got it all figured out.
Johnny is played by Sterling Hayden in Stanley Kubrick's 1956 THE KILLING, a taut big-heist movie that boasts excellent performances across the board, crackling dialogue by crime novelist Jim Thompson, and an famously innovative and influential non-linear design.
Of course, the best laid plans can encounter all kinds of snags, especially when George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.) gets a little loose-lipped with his too beautiful wife Sherry (Marie Windsor.) Add young punk Val Cannon (Vince Edwards) to the mix as the third leg of the triangle and there's a possibility that the killing of the title might refer to more than a big-time racetrack robbery.
I enjoyed every minute of THE KILLING. It's smart and fast paced and loaded with surprises big and small, simply a riveting and flawless film. A must-see for fans of crime thrillers.
Movie Review: The first real step in Kubrick's universe...
Summary: 5 Stars
As all Kubrick afficiandos know, this was Stanley's first "mature" film. He had made 2 films, Fear and Desire (by all accounts, even Kubrick's own, a terrible film), and the mediocre Killer's Kiss. The Killing was his first masterpiece in a string of masterpieces, and it's one of the best film noir films ever made. Despite its low budget and quick (especially for Kubrick) shooting schedule, it's a tight, taut, brilliantly acted and directed picture. All of the main and supporting roles are played brilliantly. Even actors with one or two lines manage to make an impression in this film. The out of time structure of the film makes the film even more impressive and interesting. You end up feeling sympathy for the characters, despite the fact they're stealing from a racetrack. The only character that you dislike is Marie Windsor's character. She gives a great performance as the cold, heartless, two-timing tramp of Elisa Cook, Jr., who plays the sad sack husband so well. Sure, you can make fun of him, but too often in life you see that guy who will do anything for his wife even though she won't do a damn thing for him. This film may not be as mystic as Kubrick's later work, but it still is brilliant, and hasn't dated one bit.Movie Review: Bet on Film Noir
Summary: 5 Stars
One of Kubrick's early films, and the first to show the world that here was a film director who would never produce run of the mill movies. Its essentially a heist movie set a horse race track, but made in a film noir style complete with narration and a multitude of interesting characters, who are virtually all up to no good.
For the 1950's this is a highly original film. Events are not neccessarily seen chronologically, so we get to see an event and then get to see in detail how one of the major players affected the event. Think how Pulp Fiction played with time. Well this does it on a smaller scale but more often.
As films go this one is pretty much perfect. I was only going to give this 4 stars but when I tried to justify this I honestly couldn't think of anything wrong with it so ended up giving it 5. The cinematography, script and Kubrick's assured direction are all excellent.
The film could probably do with a digital remaster, there is one character - 'Maurice Oboukoff' - who I could really only a understand few words of when he spoke, but he had a strong accent and only spoke in one scene, so it didn't affect my enjoyment of the film.
Marvellous.
Movie Review: Looking at a money heist with surgical precision
Summary: 5 Stars
A taut, extremely well-made film noir about a robbery at a racetrack. Sterling Hayden is the leader of a small gang that plans to hold up the racetrack moneyroll during a major stakes race. The movie traces the careful, methodical planning and staging of the heist - and the eventual foul-up at the end. Marie Windsor as Sherry, the greedy two-timing wife of one of the gang members (Elisha Cook, Jr.), is the chief cause of this foul-up.
One of director Stanley Kubrick's major themes in all his movies is "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry," and that's certainly the case here as this "perfect" crime blows apart at the end. The picture concentrates almost totally on the mechanics of the holdup and very little on the characters (except for Cook and Windsor) - more attention to character motivation might have catapulted this movie to masterpiece stature rather than merely excellent, a la THE ASPHALT JUNGLE. The story is told in a no-nonsense, near-documentary style, with excellent use of flashbacks to show different things happening simultaneously. This was Kubrick's third film and the one that deservedly got him noticed. It's a noteworthy movie in many ways. Definitely worth a watch.