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The KillingRating:
Release Date: 14 August, 2001 Retail Price: $14.95 OUR Price: $12.99 You SAVE: $1.96! Cast: Complete Cast (8 total) |
The Killing Reviews
Early Kubrick is a Killer
The Killing was on of the first film directed by the great Stanley Kubrick and is definitely one of his best. This is a straight caper film. No bells and whistles just a great story. This story is told in what would become know as "Dragnet", a monotone narrator giving the facts.
Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) is a small time crook looking for one last score to retire. He's been setting this up for some time and has all the inside people in place. This will be the perfect crime where no one will get hurt.
The plan is to rob a race track. Johnny plans on using the money to run away with his girlfriend, Fay (Coleen Gray). He has collected a group of desperate people, none of which are career criminals, just people in too deep.
Mike O'Reilly is the track bartender, his wife is dying of cancer. George Peatty (Elisha Cook) is a track cashier, his he married a woman who wants to live above George's abilities. Marvin Unger is an accountant who is financing the job. Patrolman Randy Kenyon has gambling debts that he cannot pay. These men plus Johnny make the heist gang.
There are two men outside the gang. They are hired for a specific purpose for a set amount. The first is strongman Maurice and the other is gunman Nikki Arone. Maurice is to start a fight at the track and Nikki is to kill a horse in the seventh race. Both of these are to be distractions.
But things were already unraveling. George is boasting to his wife. His wife then tells her lover Val Cannon (Vince Edwards).
At the heist, Nikki's escape runs afoul and he is killed. The rest of the team's parts go off without a hitch. They all meet up at Marvin's apartment awaiting Johnny and the split of the take. But Val is not satisfied with taking just George's split, he wants it all and ambushes the boys at Marvin's before the money arrives. George kills Val and Val's shotgun discharges killing the others.
Johnny arrives to find all dead and runs off to his own fate.
This film is not told chronologically. It is told by character story lines. So it jumps back and forth in time. But there is a method to the madness. This film shows the same events from different points of view. It does not fragment scenes to show everything when it happened. Unlike future filmmakers who use the distorted time line as a gimmick to hide the flaws in their films, Kubrick uses this to make his film more complete.
This film shows the early genius of Stanley Kubrick.
DVD EXTRAS: None
Sterling Hayden at his finest
This is a great movie. Its in black and white and it is classic noir. Sterling Hayden is the classic example of a movie STAR of that time. He is big, tall as a tree, handsome and like a piece of granite. The guy is just a mans man and in this movie he is a criminals criminal. He leads a cast of characters in a robbery of a horse race track. The movie goes thru the set up and the actual recruitment of the thugs and the envolvement of their broads. Ex professional wrestling legend and promoter Kola Kwiriani makes an appearance and is involved in a great brawl against about 20 cops and he kicks their butts. Hayden is the guy that is too dumb to do the right thing and too smart to not try to plan the wrong thing, the perfect crime. He brings along his mousey girlfriend who he is going to take away after the "last big score".
Just love this movie. Its a keeper and a legendary film noir movie. Oh and also... Stanley Kubrick is the director!!!
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