Lack of good storyline.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I remember hearing whispers of the low-budget heist thriller Killing Zoe back in 1993, mainly because of its link to Quentin Tarantino, the then up-and-coming indie writer/director who was quickly becoming the poster boy for '90s cool following the controversial success of his debut Reservoir Dogs. Killing Zoe was directed by Roger Avary, the film enthusiast who worked in a video store with Tarantino. When the writing duo won an Academy Award for Pulp Fiction in 1994, Tarantino was the best thing since sliced bread, and Killing Zoe enjoyed a brief cult success due to the motor- mouth's name being plastered above the title, although only serving as executive producer. Almost a quarter- century later, Avary's film has faded into obscurity, and deservedly so.American Zed (Eric Stoltz) arrives in Paris and quickly befriends a talkative cab driver, who offers to set him up for the night with a girl. Back at his hotel room, he is soon joined by the young and beautiful Zoe (Julie Delpy), who insists that she is not a prostitute but an art student looking to make some quick cash to get by. She inexplicably falls for the overwhelmingly passive Zed, until Parisian Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade) barges in and throws her out. It turns out that Zed is in Paris to assist his old friend with a bank job, where he will use his expertise to crack open the tricky vault. Eric insists that the heist happens the very next day, and rather than take the time to mull over the plan in detail, Eric, Zed and the rest of the gang indulge in a night of excess, involving drink, women, and lots and lots of heroin.It's no surprise that the eventual robbery goes spectacularly wrong, with the gang (including Gary Kemp) still tripping from the night before and feeling particularly trigger-happy. What occurs in the final third is a hateful and tedious orgy of blood and shouting. The crew aren't endearing in their ineptitude, but completely annoying and charmless. It certainly has a deliberate manic energy to it, but is done so with a lack of real substance. The movie is at its best during the moments building up to the heist, which use a mixture of out-of-focus photography and garbled dialogue to create a truly whacked-out atmosphere. It's almost like that moment when you realise you've had too much but your friends won't allow you to leave, only with a bunch of junkie psychopaths in your face spouting their own nonsensical philosophy. Overall, it's an unpleasantly nihilistic experience that offers only a glimpse into Avary's talents and obvious fondness for cinema. Keep your eyes peeled for a bizarre cameo by Ron Jeremy.

KILLING ZOEI liked it... but it was a film of 2 halves.The first half of the movie was just average at best. A group of people that get together to arrange a bank robbery, but most of the first 45 minutes was just them getting wasted on drugs and messing about around Paris. This part of the movie dragged on a bit. It was OK, but more could have happened. But the second half was awesome. The bank robbery.When the entered the bank, the movie really picked up the pace.Zoe is the receptionist in the bank that the group hold up...the problem is, Zoe is also a hooker that one of the robbers has fallen in love with. He didn't know she worked there.The cast was good though. Eric Stoltz, Jean-Hughes Anglade & Julie Delpy really do well. I connected with the characters these guys played. There were even some good supporting roles too. Especially Gary Kemp. Who would have known that the guy from Spandau Ballet could be a good actor. He was really good in the Krays too.There was one scene in the movie though that made me laugh. Someone gets shot and has about 200 bullets shot at him from a few guns all at the same time... yet he did not go down! He still stood there for about 30 seconds after. I am pretty sure he would have gone down a long time after that. Also, there is a brilliant comical scene with a cat. :)There was a really good raw feel to this movie that I loved... Tarantino usually has that feel with his films. I suppose this has it because he was Executive Producer.All in all this film was good. I will give it 7 out of 10.A slow first half, but a great second half and ending.For more reviews, please like my Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ordinary-Person-Movie- Reviews/456572047728204?ref=hl

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.

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