Rating of
3/4
Stanley without the Kubrick.
memento_mori - wrote on 09/09/13
One of Stanley Kubrick's earlier works, The Killing goes about as far as a Kubrick day-dream may go. The elements are there, but it's not as great at the end.
Let's just say it wasn't what I expected from the master. I can't call this a half-a*s Stanley Kubrick film, because it was one of his first directorial efforts, made for $320 000.
But all of his films contained a quality of fascination, this one doesn't. It's about as standard a crime film as they come, with some intelligent scenes and characters intercut.
The direction of course was great. The lighting in the movie was beautiful. Never did smoke ascending through a lamp shade seem so fascinating. When you don't have color, use what you have to make it look good.
It's probably Kubrick's worst script, though. While still smart, it had a very common structure. Many caper films of this kind had exactly the same plot with some different locations and characters. As you would expect, during the heist the plotters run into a number of problems, but none of them ever come back to bite them in the back. The problems are solved almost instantly and the robbery goes just as planned. I do like its non-linear time jumps, though.
I'll be honest, I got pretty sick by some of the aspects in this movie. The bland structure, the stupid macho narration, the fates of the characters. It's a 90 minute long movie, and it really feels like that.
But, I guess this is a good example of a good caper film. It's intelligent not only during the heist, but with its characters. I liked the relationship between George and his wife and all the people involved in the robbery. The acting was great.
While it wasn't one of his better films, it had some redeeming qualities such as the great direction and cinematography and it did well for the genre that it was trying to enclose.
