Review of Killing Zoe (1993) by Per Gunnar J — 24 Jul 2012

This is really a Tarantino wannabe movie. They got Tarantino to endorse it by putting his name on the cover so I guess he must have felt it was good enough, or maybe itâ(TM)s just because the writer and director, Roger Avary, and Tarantino was working together in the early days, but I wasnâ(TM)t overly impressed.

The beginning isnâ(TM)t too bad. There a scene at the beginning where the rather naive Zed is getting it on with a hooker (Zoe) and scenes from the still running TV in the room are intermixed with the scenes of the movie to a rather funny effect. However, from there on it goes somewhat downhill.

The gang goes on a party spree, getting completely stoned on all kind of substances the day before theyâ(TM)re going to rob a bank. Yeah, a very probable thing to do, not to mention intelligentâ¦not! This parts also drags out forever into various attempts to make psychedelic drug-influenced scenes.

The bank robbery itself of course turns into a murderous carnage aâ(TM) la Tarantino but it really lacks his touch. Itâ(TM)s more a bunch of screaming crazy French guys shooting someone, including themselves, every now and then. The attempt to make a slow-motion shooting scene at the end just becomes silly when the French police slams a thousand rounds into the main bad guy after everyone realized that he stands 4 meters in front of them with an empty shotgun.

If Avary tried to make a Tarantino-like movie with his own style in it he probably succeeded. Unfortunately he didnâ(TM)t succeed in convincing me that this was as good as one written by Tarantino himself.