Eric Stoltz plays a man named Zed who travels to Paris in order to catch up with a childhood friend named Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade) and help him rob a Federal Reserve bank. Upon his arrival, he sleeps with a call girl named Zoe (Julie Delpy) who he ends up falling in love with. When Zed goes to meet Eric, he ends up spending the night with him and all of his junkie friends who hide out in a run down apartment building with a dead feline near the entrance to their room. They plan to rob the bank the next morning, and Zed is going to be the safe cracker. After much passing out, puking, hallucinating, and a male rape, Zed and the rest of the gang awaken in a drunken daze, already late for their robbery, and then they foolishly attempt to rob the bank while still moderately trashed, hungover, and restless. Naturally things go very wrong very fast, and it becomes no longer about getting the money, but more about trying to survive.If Roger Avary's intention was to make a truly memorable art house exploitation film, he succeeded with flying colors. I'm pretty sure that this was intention and there's no denying that this is a good film. I have some serious problems with Killing Zoe, however, and those problems have much to do with the first two thirds of the picture. Avary spends a very large portion of the film in this junkie world with these truly atrocious and ugly characters doing ugly things. I felt that too much time was spent in this world. The only likable character is Julie Delpy's character, and she doesn't get nearly enough screen time as she should. As for Eric Stoltz, he pretty much plays the same character as he played in Pulp Fiction, though not anywhere near as much as a prick. His character, Zed, for the most part is a fairly goofy, eccentric, and slight perverted guy. I liked how he wasn't an entirely sympathetic protagonist. His character, for the most part, works. Likewise for his friend Eric, who is a completely horrific villain. He's disgusting, sleazy, skeletal-looking, and a sweaty mess of a man who has little conscience and no morals, and I applaud Jean-Hugues Anglade for playing a role that few actors would have the balls to play. This brings me to my biggest gripe with the film, however. These are the three main characters, but they are also the three most interesting characters as well. Every other character is completely disposable they take up far too much screen time that should have been devoted to the three main characters. To make matters worse, in the third act of the film when the characters actually try to rob the bank, a good portion of all of these characters are killed off almost immediately. While I applaud Roger Avary for crafting such a strong vision of graphic carnage in the third act, I felt that he was betraying the trash quality that took place in the first two acts with these junkie characters getting slaughtered so damn quickly. As the last act of the film stands, most of the characters end up getting killed off almost constantly and with little to no emotion. When it is not a member of the gang getting killed it is either a security guard or an innocent civilian. Somebody is almost always getting killed, often in over-the-top fashion.What I did love about Killing Zoe was the look of the film. The bank that the film takes place in during the final act is just gorgeous in how claustrophobic it is. The walls of the bank are red, and it only adds to the psychotic nature of the Eric character. The character really is quite terrifying, and the bank that Avary shot in has a perfect interior for these sort of characters. The middle section mostly takes place in real grimy, dirty, dark areas that look completely hellish. Somehow the bank looks like a scarier location than the junkie hideouts, and I liked that. The opening and closing scenes show some beautiful shots of Paris as well, which definitely helped elevate the film even more. I also felt that the final act of the film, despite the gratuitous bloodshed and carnage, really was quite suspenseful and intense. The film is so furious in it's tone and the final act really pulls it all together. At times it is difficult to watch because the audience knows right away that the situation is going to go wrong and the characters are doomed. When the bank robbery actually starts, it is so disorganized and so uncoordinated that a feeling of unhinged maniacal danger sets in immediately. It makes the film a little bit different from other heist films. The characters are all young, hapless, and careless people who have abandoned reality.Killing Zoe lacks a sense of control, which both helps and hurts the film. On one hand, it certainly helps make the final act of the film that much more shocking and realistic. On the other hand, it is difficult to look part the first two thirds of the film. I do think that this film has an audience, but I also think that it's difficult to call it a good film. It works in a lot of ways. Visually, it's better than it needs to be. The performances are all very strong, not to mention ballsy, and the vision of hell this film paints is pretty tough to shake. It's a rough film, but it manages to have a lot of energy. It is a very flawed film. However, if you're a fan of trash cinema and exploitation, you may want to give this a try. It's a messy film, but it's effective and definitely memorable.

You can completely skip the boring and utterly annoying first hour to go to the second half. The drama in it is really lame. They try to spice it up with controversial topics ( AIDS, hookers ) but in the end that is just to cover up the lack of good ideas to make an innovative action movie. From a bad executed drama it suddenly turns into a nice gangster comedy like Reservoir Dogs. Everything just leads up to the robbing of the bank and the dark humor that goes along with it. Okay, so it's all a bit clichéd, but who cares...? This is not world class cinema, but it is good enough for a boring Saturday eve. Just don't watch it with too many expectations. And don't think that something produced by Tarantino makes it into a new Pulp Fiction, it just doesn't.

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

I don't know why this movie passed me by for so long, but last night I finally watched it and what can I say, it was brilliant. The acting is amazing, the story is gripping and the cinematography is poignant and dark.A lot films have stereotypical "good" characters for the audience to feel an affinity with; but make no mistake, there are no heroes in this film. One can't help but notice that the main character, although smooth and sexy, is involving him self with something ridiculously stupid. Zed also seems to have trouble standing up for him self, especially against his friend the ringleader, Eric. Even in the first 10 mins of the film he's hard to like for these reasons. He is however, the only character in the film you can feel any kind of empathy for. This is mainly because he is the main character and it's almost as if we are made to. I'm sure one could empathize with Zoë if she wasn't featured and characterized so little throughout the film. Her role is a very important one however, and I think we spend such little time with her in order to realize that Zed is just starting to live his life (Zoë means "life" in Greek), when he meets feels an affinity with Zoë. The audience is suppose to see what Zed sees and feel what Zed feels. He doesn't get to know Zoë well during the course of the film therefore neither do we. Another way this is achieved is through the cinematography. If you remember during the sex scene switching between the black and white horror film that was on the television and a naked Zoë from the perspective of Zed, who was lying below her. We see what he sees. Most of the shots in the first half of the film are fairly close up as well if you remember, this gives us a sense of closeness to Zed, and also of nervous tension, which is the emotion he must be feeling coming to a new city for such a reason as armed robbery.One of the things to remember when watching this film is that in order to to enjoy and appreciate a film, you don't nessecerly have to like the characters or what they do. On quite a few occasions during this film I found my self flinching, especially at the treatment and portrayal women and of course the homicidal actions of some of the main characters. However, this film is an enthralling roller coaster ride of violence, drugs and depravity and despite everything cringe worthy, it is very enjoyable. The acting is very natural, so much so that one wonders if some of it was ad-lib. Eric Stoltz is wonderful as always and Jean-Hugues Anglade is the best I've ever seen him. He plays a really good maniac!Roger Avary really should stick to what he's good at and make more films like this one.