Customer Reviews

Killing Zoe [VHS]

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

All those who think it's just another Tarantino rip-off should know that both directors worked together in the same video store before making it big, were co-writers on Pulp Fiction and basically have helped each other out on several projects. It's just that Tarantino made his name first that everyone assumes Avary's work is copying it. Not true. This movie is amazing! The acting is superb - Jean-Hughes Anglade gives the most charismatic performance I've ever seen. It's shot brilliantly starting with neutral shades, to the blue night club scene and finally descending into the red bank scenes that symbolize Eric's own demented and violent mind. Been scapegoated for Hollywood's violence, really no more than tons of other flicks - I think the violence embedded in Eric's mind is what makes it seem so disturbing, not the actual physical violence. Julie Delpy and Eric Stoltz also give maybe their best performances to date. See this many times!!!

Some ultra-vi movies, like "Reservoir Dogs" and "True Romance," have little to commend them because the vi is the be-all and end-all. "Killing Zoe" brackets the violence with humor and mania, resulting in a very interesting movie. Eric Stoltz plays Zed, a US safecracker just arrived in Paris for a big job with his former school buddy Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade). He has the concierge at his hotel send up a prostitute (the very appealing Julie Delpy) and they get it on tenderly, falling in love. A cliche, but nicely done. The second third is a drug binge before the big job, vaguely psychedelic and reminiscent of the New Orleans cemetary acid scene in "Easy Rider," but better done. The last and most satisfying part is the bank heist gone awry--like "Dog Day Afternoon" on speed and minus the humor, but with lots more blood. The redeeming feature is the world-beating performance of Anglade as Eric, played with manic energy, dementia and irony as things go from bad to worse. He alone is worth the price of admission, though he gets plenty of help from fine performances by Stoltz and Delpy. Look for Gary Kemp, who played Fat Ron in "The Krays," as one of the bank robbers. Definitely worthwhile.

Have you ever been somewhere and thought to yourself, this would be a great location for a film (happens to me all the time, and yet no movies have come my way)? That's what happened to producer Lawrence Bender as he was scouting locations for the 1992 Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs. He was offered the use of a bank in L.A., it didn't fit within the script, but he was able to find a story that utilized the location, and thus begat Killing Zoe (1994). In this case the script had already been written, and it just happened that most of the story takes place within a bank, so it was a match, for better or worse. Written and directed by Roger Avary (The Rules of Attraction), the film stars Eric Stoltz (The Wild Life), Julie Delpy (An American Werewolf in Paris), and Jean-Hugues Anglade (Taking Lives). Also appearing is Bruce Ramsay (Alive), Kario Salem (Nomads), Salvator Xuereb (The Doom Generation), and Gary Kemp (The Krays).

The film begins as Zed, played by Stoltz, looking much like a scruffy poster boy for the Grunge movement, arrives in Paris and hails a cab to take him to a hotel. During the cab ride, the driver offers to set Zed up with some female companionship, to which a comely woman named Zoe (Delpy) show up a few hours later. After some brief formalities (we learn she doesn't do `weird' stuff), the two further the cause for Franco-American relations, to which we learn she's just doing it for the money (duh) to pay for school. Soon Zed's French friend Eric (Anglade) arrives, and he quickly and unceremoniously ejects Zoe from the room (sans her clothes). Seems Zed has arrived in Paris at Eric's bequest, as Zed is a safecracker, and Eric has a job lined up, to take place on Bastille Day (similar to our 4th of July...look it up). Zed meets with the rest of Eric's crew (I wasn't impressed), and the gang goes out on the town for a dose of the three D's, drinking, drugs (there's a lot of `riding the snake' involved), and Dixieland music...seriously. I don't know about you, but if I'm going to pull a major bank heist, the last thing I'm going to do is go out the night before and get stoned to the gills (Zed puking in a dirty urinal being the highlight here...remember that kids, drugs is bad). Anyway, the next day arrives, and the gang hits the bank...and their well-oiled plans quickly go down the drain (much the same as Zed's breakfast, lunch, and dinner the night before). All kinds of complications develop, from uncooperative bank employees to less than capable members within Eric's group. Did I also mention that Zoe works at the bank (talk about your moonlighting)? Well, things continue to deteriorate (the police show up, and they seem to care little for the hostages) as we witness the importance of careful planning and being picky when choosing associates for such an undertaking.

In some aspects, I felt like this film was almost a pale comparison to Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon (1975) starring Al Pacino (see it, it's a great film). There were a few things that detracted from this film, some major, some minor. First of all, how stupid do you have to be to go on a drunken drug binge (scenes that took way too much time) the night before you're planning to pull a major robbery (I think it was presented as some sort of `bonding' sequence)? Did I mention this before? It's worth bringing up again...and an experienced safecracker (Zed) would have never agreed to perform a job with such short notice and so little planning...talk about stupidity...and what was with that dumb, American stereotype in the bank? Here's some guy blathering on and on about he's an American and all kinds of simplistic, stereotypical American BS, presented only so that we can see him get blown away. What kind of moron would have stood up and did what he did, amidst a group of heavily armed, trigger happy, obviously unstable bank robbers? An American one, obviously... I did feel the script was decent, even strong at some points, and there's plenty of action, but more often it seemed like the violence was there only for the sake of having it there...the random shooting of the various bank employees and patrons (actually, we don't get to see a lot of people get shot, as a good deal of the violence happens off screen) seemed a bit gratuitous (a Quentin Tarantino film with gratuitous violence? Gee, that's a shocker...). I appreciated some of the comic elements throughout the film, like when Zed, who was mainly working on the vault doors, and is unaware that the police have since gotten involved, discover such in the elevator as him and another have liberated the booty and are bringing it to the ground floor. The film was set in Paris, with the opening and closing scenes featuring Paris locations, but the rest of the film was shot in L.A., the bulk taking place in the bank and its underground vault area, which was painted an awful, garish, red. The film is filled with lots of flashy spectacle, so-so acting, two-dimensional characters, guns, guns, and more guns, and lots of blood. Some scenes to watch for...Delpy gets nekkid...this happens shortly after the beginning, and is worth it, as she's an attractive woman. Also watch for a cameo by Ron Jeremy aka A Man Called Horse, as an unfortunate bank employee.

The widescreen anamorphic (1.85:1) picture on this DVD looks very good, and the Dolby Digital 2.0 audio is clear most of the time, but could have been better...special features include cast and crew bios, productions notes, and a theatrical trailer.

Cookieman108

By the way, if I learned anything from this film, it's that Frenchmen, especially those involved in criminal activities, respect you more if you smell like you've just been with a woman, if you know what I mean...

I bought this as an Artisan Entertainment 2-pack, along with the film The Way of the Gun (2000) from Amazon. Separately, Killing Zoe is listed as $13.48, The Way of the Gun is $9.98, and the two pack cost $17.98, so you do the math.

I was drawn to see this because Roger Avary was the man who came up with the idea for "The Gold Watch" segment in my favorite movie "Pulp Fiction".
I was curious to see how Roger Avary was when he worked by himself. "Killing Zoe" was his directorial debut and like almost any debut, it has its flaws. It's not a bad movie though and it's a pretty interesting movie, but dialouge over story is truly Avary's strong suit. I hate to compare anybody's dialouge (except Elmore Leonard in his books) to Quentin Tarantino's, but to make a point I must. Avary's dialouge flows like Tarantino's and it's filled with wit and humor. I laughed aloud at a couple parts, like the cat & "I can't do pee on you for 200 bucks." The first time I watched it, I wondered to myself how one of the characters in this movie could feel emotion for the person that she helps at the end after what is done to her. I don't want to say much more than that for fear of ruining the movie...But in the first few scenes between these two, it's obvious. Anyway, "Killing Zoe" begins in a cab with Zed (Eric Stoltz, who's very good here), an American in France, who's on his way to a motel. When Zed gets to the motel, he takes a shower and a prosititute shows up at his house. This prostitute is Zoe (Julie Delpy of "Before Sunset"), an art student. In a great scene, Zoe and Zed have a conversation (after sex) about why they like each other. Then, Zed's friend Eric (Jean-Hughes Anglade) shows up and tosses Zoe, naked, out of the motel. Zed does nothing, but goes with Eric to his place where they begin to map out a bank robberty that's to happen tomorrow on Bastille Day (which I've never heard of except in the song by Rush). The bank will be the only one that's open, Zed will crack the safe. Problem is, Zed is not a bad man by any standard. He's a crook, but he's not a bad man. Eric is a bad man, he's also a drug fiend and that's not a good combination. Anyway, Eric and Zed, and a bunch of other guys go the bank the next day (they don't get to the bank until like 45 minutes into the movie) and preceed to rob it, but (as in all bank heist movies) things don't go their way and the cops are outside. Also,
Zoe happens to work there...That's all I'm going to say about the synopsis.
Anyways, one thing Avary does in this movie really well (besides dialouge) is
he paces the film well. In a lot of movies, the pacing is boring and obvious. The only other director I can think of that can use a lot of pacing is Stanley Kubrick, most notably in "Eyes Wide Shut". Avary isn't using the pacing just to have some story leading up to the bank robbery, he's building the tension. Problem is, there were a few times when the pacing did get boring. Like in the scene where they're driving down the street and yelling at prosititutes. Pointless...But, this is a good movie and a good first feature. Stoltz, Anglade, and Delpy are all very good and Roger Avary proves that he's a worthy director.

DIALOUGE: A
STORY: B-
OVERALL GRADE: B

Eric Stoltz is a safe-cracker from America who teams up with a childhood friend and his sadistic crew of French heroin-addict bank robbers to take down a Federal Reserve in the heart of Paris. Things go violenty wrong (as is usually the case in "heist" films) when said friend goes berserk. Outrageously violent and filled with dark humor, "Killing Zoe" is like "Reservoir Dogs" on speed-balls. In fact, Quentin Tarantino executive-produced this one along with "Dogs" producer Lawrence Bender. While the movie is not classified as a foreign film, a good portion of it is spoken in French with English subtitles.

The Dark Side of putting customer reviews on Amazon: some guy wanted to give this a negative star, calling it predictable. If you can predict the story after 5 minutes, you must be psychic. It's a tremendously exciting, very dark and hilarious tale with exceptional performances by Anglade (just brilliant), Stoltz and the extraordinarily attractive Julie Delpy; watch her remove her bra, it's a very pleasant surprise. The gang of criminals are great, each individual an original, if boneheaded, character; the drugs are extremely realistic. It's witty, sexy, exciting, original and darkly amusing (if that's enough critical banalities)...but it's true. Must applaud the music - buy the soundtrack, it's extraordinary. Loved the scene where Eric and Julie are going at it in the hotel room while the original Nosferatu plays soundlessly on the room tv; no doubt heralding the imminent arrival of the one-man wrecking crew Anglade.

I repeat, do NOT expect to hear the same dialouge as Pulp Fiction. The two movies are as different as night and day (except of course for the violence).

I honestly have mixed feelings about this movie. There are some parts of it I admired, like the cinema-photography. That and the acting is why I give the film three stars. However, there are too many things wrong with it to be a great film, mostly the weak, un-original plot.

Let me say that I don't have a problem with violence in movies, even over the top violence. However, to me the directors were shooting more for a "lets see how bloody and violent we can make this" film, rather than a "lets make a violent, bloody film with a solid unpredictable plot".

That I do have a problem with.

I agree with Maltin's review completely, it was disapointing and completly average. Considering films such as "Albino Alligator," "Reservoir Dogs," and "In Harm's Way," "Killing Zoe" is nothing special or worth checking out.

"Killing Zoe" is a slow moving bank hiest gone awry film that is no where near as involving or breathtaking as Quenton Tarintino's "Reservoir Dogs," which brilliantly tackles similar material. "Killing Zoe" simpley lacks Tarintino's energetic story telling abilities. It also lacks intresting characters we can relate to, complexity, and plot twists. It contains virtually no character developement and no big twists or turns in the plot. Not to mention the huge holes in logic.

"Killing Zoe" has to be one the most violent films, but oddly my favorite. Its the story of an American safecracker who gets out of prison and travels to Paris to rob a bank with his French friend, Eric. There he meets a prostitute named Zoe who happens to work at the bank they rob. The robbery is one of the most bloody in movie history with them gunning down anyone that gets in the way. At first I was uncomfortable with that but the story unfolds in a way that is so compelling you can't stop watching. Jean-Hughes Anglade was incredible in his portrayal of the evil Aids stricken Eric with no respect for human life. Eric is probably the most interesting character in the film. He's so ruthless and convincing that he's the one thing that makes this movie so great.

There are also funny moments like the Billy Holiday albums, their night at the jazz club, the Viking movies and the little monkey. The movie is bizarre at times but its definitely unique.

All in all, its a great film that I watch over and over again.