Killing Zoe (1994)

I HATE Tarantino movies. of course this was directed by somebody else but it's so close. however, do you like BS movies? how about junkie movies? what about junkie movies with guns? yeah if you are a nutcase who gets off watching a bunch of idiots shooting at innocent/random people then this is for you. I will not bore you however with what this trash is about though the story sucks. it's stupid and very boring.

with this film being directed by Roger Avery and Quentin Tarantino doing the screenplay i was sure this was going to be a gem. i was wrong. i don't hate this film but in no ways do i like it.i love Roger Avery because of his amazing direction in rules of attraction and his screenplays to pulp fiction and silent hill but he made a mistake making this. do i really need to comment on Tarantino, we all know hes a genius.this movie is just set around a gang robbing a bank but fails due to silly people participating in the robberyi'm disappointed in Tarantino and Avery for doing this film but doesn't change my mind on how amazing they both are. everyone makes mistakes......... 3/10...........j.d Seaton

There is an energy behind Killing Zoe, there is a passion and a commitment from its director behind Killing Zoe and that is to make a fast, furious and bloody film that entertains as well as shocks in equal measure. Given the situation regarding this film's production, the film comes across upon reading the pre-production stage as a bit of an accident. Whilst scouting for locations for Reservoir Dogs, director Roger Avary would discover a place where a 'perfect' heist film could take place. Since the whole gimmick (in the nicest possible way) for Reservoir Dogs is that it's a heist film without the heist, the bank couldn't really be used but it suited Avary's other script he had going and that was Killing Zoe.An interesting back-story to a film that is never anything but interesting, apart from perhaps being entertaining at certain points. For Reservoir Dogs to take a mere two years before it itself would become a victim of a pastiche is testament to Reservoir Dog's influential power as well as Avary's own passion and drive behind this production. Notice how the script supposedly took a week to write, also.The film revolves predominantly around a heist going on in a French bank in which master safecracker Zed (Stoltz) is working with an old French buddy who also just happens to be a heroin addict and a psychopathic criminal, amongst other things. He is Eric (Anglade) and is played with ruthless efficiency by the respective French actor. But Killing Zoe is not another routine heist film. Killing Zoe spells out all the tiny, painstaking details that go with robbing a bank and it utilises the conventional 'race against time' drive. Amongst other things, the guys will have to go through each hostage one by one in order to get codes, they will have to pass the time in the main office while other robbers work downstairs on the vault and they will have to deal with any security guards they might miss once entering new bank owned territory.But that's the joy of Killing Zoe. Once it all gets up and running, there is no going back. It is a roller-coaster of violence, disturbance and dark, dark humour that isn't over until it's over. The film is all about stealing and mugging. Zed is the perfect 'fish out of water': an American in Paris; an American in France; an American in Europe. One of the first scenes of the film has a porter stand there and accept a tip that is probably too much; Zed is being 'robbed'. Then there is Zoe (Delpy) herself who charges a thousand Francs for sex but maintains she is no prostitute. "In that case, can I have my money back?" wise-cracks Zed but if you go by her convincing analysis of what she is, she is right and thus has got herself some money not through stealing but in a slimy working way. Similar to the porter who gets extra cash bringing up bags and Zoe acting as a prostitute for money, Zed and his group of cronies are breaking into banks; breaking into vaults and trying to steal the cash that they probably all think they earn by doing this. With this reading, the film is about greed.Then there are the influences of other work made by Tarantino and Avary round about the time. The sex scene between Zed and Zoe is inter-cut with images from the Nosferatu film echoing the technique used in Natural Born Killers; a film Tarantino wrote but disowned. There is also the establishment of a genuine love affair between a male lead and a prostitute echoing True Romance of the previous year, another Tarantino penned film. So if Zed is established as this lost soul as an American in France, it is because he is mugged out of a thousand Francs from a girl who isn't selling herself; he is never given the time in plain English and is informed by Eric about how wrong foreign people are when it comes to French iconography and tourism. But when push comes to shove and he is placed in his 'zone', Zed performs. This is first followed through when he looks at a map of the bank and comes up with an alternate plan that will save them time as well as possible trouble – he has solved the robbers a problem.Killing Zoe is a film that although is American, does not conform to European stereotypes just archetypes the genre demands. The French are not buffoons, the Englishman played by Gary Kemp is not a total idiot and if anything they are all a match for one another with the Zed, the American, himself sticking out for ridicule thanks to the evidence mentioned in the previous paragraph. Eric is a psychotic criminal into hard drugs and homicide, he would also rather blow someone up than shoot them in the vault. The film is one that does not start off with typical French iconography of whatever you like but stays a ground level, literally. The fast moving cars and sense of travelling kicks the film off perfectly and with a good guy to root for, a love story cleverly thrown in and an awesome bad guy, it is no surprise the film maintains that air of near perfection throughout.

Quentin Tarantino's partner in crime Roger Avary (co-writer on "Pulp Fiction") ventures out on his own (Q.T. goes exec. prod. this time) for this over-boiled French thriller.Eric Stoltz is Zed, safe cracker extraordinaire who has drifted over to France from the U.S. at the request of an old friend. There he teams up with a motley crew of drugged out hippies who, with little or no planning, think they can knock off a bank vault full of gold bullion on a French national holiday.Avary has reworked the robbery gone wrong theme that Tarantino developed so well in "Reservoir Dogs", only "Killing Zoe" is not good enough to survive on the strength of this alone, so Avary has thrown in a rather beautiful distraction. Julie Delpy is Zoe, a student come call girl who entertains Zed on his arrival in Paris. A stunning distraction she certainly is, but nothing more.I guess our director wanted to add a different angle to this basic theme, but sadly the move did not help to add the depth his shallow plot so desperately needed. There was never a story in this idea, which was nothing more than that, an idea. Even the surreal journey into the seedy dives of Paris is uninspiring. I figure one would have to concede that there was never much of a movie in the story of a bunch of gangsters shooting each other up over a botched jewellery heist either, that is until you add intricate characters and snappy dialogue. "Reservoir Dogs" had it, "Killing Zoe" did not.Stoltz's strong interpretation of the doubtful Zed and Jean Hughes-Anglade's mad portrayal of the obsessive ring leader do nothing to lift proceedings. In short, Avary has unsuccessfully attempted to conjure entertainment out of nothing.Friday, September 15, 1995 - Astor Theatre