Killing Zoe

Killing Zoe played in Seattle theaters for exactly one week in August of 1994 and I managed to see it twice.Everything about this movie worked for me: the writing, the cinematography,the acting, the editing and the music. From the first images rushing through the streets of Paris until the blood-soaked climax, I was mesmerized. I consider myself lucky to have seen it in theaters with a good sound system becauseI have queried friends who have seen it on video and they had a completely different opinion of the film because they had missed key lines of dialog that really go a long way towards investing Killing Zoe with a certain quintessentially 90s vibe of doomed heroin-soaked romanticism, giving it deeper levels than most people are willing to admit.

This film is a dark and profound meditation on the violent life and seemingly subsequent redemption of it's main character,E Stoltz, it is however often asked why the film titled 'Killing Zoe', J Delhi's role.

Pay close attention to the fact that her character, in the films bloody climax, has her hand slashed by a crazed French bank robber. He is then smoked by at least a dozen tactical response police officers.

At the end of the film Julie Delphi is in a car with stoltz, who mistakenly thinks Delphi has been hit or injured, she replies that the blood is not hers, and ofers to show 'Z' the sights of Paris.

Earlier in the film the leader of the French gang relates to Z the fact that he has contracted HIV (or in his words Aids) therefore there is a better than average chance that Delphi contracted the virus from him during the aforementioned bloody climax.... Hence the title Killing Zoe!

Roger Avary collaborated (as a writer) with Quentin Tarantino in his early projects, so it's no surprise that his own directing debut would be in the same vein: dirty humor, sudden bursts of violence, unlawful and immoral characters, pop references, etc. And it's an impressive debut - if never as outstanding as "Reservoir Dogs". The first half is druggy and draggy, but the second half is arresting (no pun intended). Eric Stoltz is a little bland, but Jean Hugues Anglade dominates the film as an unrelentingly psychopathic villain - he keeps you in a state of nervous apprehension about what he may do next. *** out of 4.

Zed (Eric Stoltz) has only just arrived in the beautiful Paris and already he is up to no good. Having just slept with a call girl (Julie Delpy), he spends a night on the town with his dangerous friends. They all decide to rob a bank the following day. There is only one problem: Zed's call-girl, Zoe, just happens to work at the bank which is to be robbed! I believe this film comes from the same guy who wrote "Pulp Fiction", and the similarities are evident. Although the first half is a strange romance-turned-heist, the film gets increasingly violent as it carries on. This is very much the same style as "Pulp Fiction". (Both also feature Eric Stoltz.) Julie Delpy is interesting here. Although she is more or less reduced to a secondary character, it is interesting how she was something of the "it girl" as far as French women in American movies were concerned. She was not the first or the last, but it seems that at any given time there is always one French actress who is the standard for appearing in American films.

Killing Zoe is definitely an underrated film, which has never received recognition it deserves. Tarantino executive produced the film, but seeing as he has worked closely with writer/director Roger Avary before, most notably Pulp Fiction, we could assume he had a little more in put. Not wanting to take anything away from Avary of course, he is a fully accomplished film maker and this shows throughout Killing Zoe. The script is well crafted, the acting convincing and the framing all very amicable. However, whilst there is nothing bad to say about it, there is nothing to rave about either. The film ticks along nicely, and before you know it you're at the end. The dialogue doesn't snap quite as you would like it too and all the characters seem to be lacking any real urgency that you might expect considering a bank robbery being planned.

All the same, this is a good crime thriller, and very much a part of the early nineties violence invasion. Worth checking out if you're a Tarantino fanatic, or if you really have nothing else to do.