Review of The Killing (1956) by Arshi R — 11 Jul 2010

The Greatest Films, a Review.

Grade: A+.

*I got some spoilers in here, not everything though*.

The Killing is perfect. It could be no better. This is one of those films I could play on repeat in the background while I go about my business. Kubrick's direction of this quintessential and technically pivotal film is tight, visceral, and cynical. The characters just rush past us as they are all etched into a heist scheme of great daring and immense profit.; all in all, it's perfectly executed and gets better every minute to the last.

Johnnie Clay (Sterling Hayden) is out of prison and masterminding a multi-manned effort to rob two million dollars from a race track. Out of Alcatraz, only the biggest score is worth the toughest punishment; so it's the biggest score that's being sought. In on the loot are key players needed by Clay to pull of the heist. He enlists the various people, most notably the cashier George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.), a rather wispy and weak willed man with a bursting temper; enter his cheating wife Sherry (Mary Windsor) to try and get in on the action any way she can, even if it means involving her boyfriend and double crossing her unsatisfying husband.

The performances, especially by Sterling Hayden and Elisha Cook Jr. are brilliant. Hayden is just so damn pro in this role, and whips off his lines in a rush, a mixture of excitement and apprehension. The worthiness of these two in these roles makes this film stick even more. When these guys were kicking ass it felt great. When they fall its even greater and twice as devastating. Hayden with the clown mask is simply unforgettable, his gun in the guitar/faux present also adds to the legend of this unforgettable criminal in the annals of cinema. The disillusion and mental deterioration of Elisha is like a flipside to the calm and cool if a bit overconfident Johnnie. As his marriage enters dangerous waters and his manhood is questioned, then blamed, then shit on, he tries to keep it together; he tries to do the right thing, because he loves his wife even if she doesn't love him.

The way it unfolds is iconic and brilliantly conceived by Kubrick. Seeing this film, I was just thinking how many films out there owe a debt of influence to The Killing. This film has so much essential greatness packed into it. Kubrick lays out a brilliant framework here in terms of the ways stories can be told, looping the film around both time-wise (repeating the same time from different perspectives) and space-wise (repeating the same destinations at different times). This movie is like a train careening out of control for its duration, and yet it is perfectly constructed in all of its uncontrolled glory, and Kubrick knows that the hand he's holding is a good one; when he reveals his hand at the end, its sheer brilliance and Kubrick wins the pot.

The narrator chimes in early on when characters are being introduced, and during the heist to tell the time every little while and notify the current line of action. Kubrick methodically takes us back through the same parts of the heist only from different perspectives, and we get an omniscient view of all the chess pieces moving and relating to each other at different moments of the heist. As all the different parts begin to go into motion, the film is simply magic. As the clock is constantly rewound and the heist retold from a different players perspective (culminating with the POV of Johnnie Clay), the level of psychological involvement and excitement is revamped at a higher level as we see the genius of one man's idea unfold in a brilliantly compartmentalized process. When the press gets wind of the story of how "one man" pulled of the most amazing heist every remembered, I felt a great deal of satisfaction knowing how all of the people contributed to this scheme and yet it went off with only one person being blamed; simply brilliant. The film has a brilliant screenplay I must say, it just doesn't let up, it keeps on coming and coming. At one point some serious shit went down near the end, and I thought to myself "Reservoir Dogs don't got nothing on this.".

I feel like I say this every time I write a Kubrick review but I'm saying it again; this film is now on my 100 all time favourite films list.