Heist Week: The Killing Proves Financially Beneficial.

The Killing

Heist films are one of my favourite genres. It is one of the few places where the heroes are the villains and the villains are usually law enforcement or men more despicable than our heroes. Unfortunately this genre is oversaturated. The heist formula has become so commonplace now that even when it is executed well, such as Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, the film often does not get more than an “it was alright” reception from audience. Nowadays it takes genre defying heist films like Inception to really get audiences’ hearts racing.

While it may not be a “game changer” by any stretch, The Killing is one of the more satisfying heist films that uses the traditional “team based” formula to maximum effect. The plot centres around a criminal, Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden), who orchestrates one last big score before settling down with Fay (Coleen Gray). Clay sets his sights on pulling off a daring heist at a local racetrack. He assembles a team of individuals ranging from a sharpshooter, Nikki Arane (Timothy Carey), to racetrack insiders at the betting window like George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.). If the team follow Clay’s plan they will be dividing up two million dollars of stolen cash. However, when George’s wife Sherry (Marie Windsor) gets wind of the scheme, she and her lover, Val Cannon (Vince Edwards), make plans of their own for the money.

Thanks to the scant 83 minute running time, not to mention its news reels style narration, The Killing never overstays its welcome. In fact it crackles at a rather swift pace. Kubrick quickly introduces all the character at the beginning of the film and therefore the bulk of the film is devoted to watching the heist unfold. The heist itself is shot well as Kubrick bounces back and forth in time to show the events that took place before the heist began. This allows the audience to get a good grasp of each team member’s responsibilities.

The bulk of the characters are rather one note, but that actually works in The Killing’s favour. Sherry in particular is so conniving that even Clay picks up on it within minutes of meeting her. In one of the best lines of the film Clay blatantly calls out Sherry’s gold-digging ways by stating that she has ”got a great big dollar sign there where most women have a heart.” It is her Lady MacBeth like ways that provides the film with it much needed punch especially in regards to how she treats George throughout.

Speaking of George, Elisha Cook Jr. gives a strong performance as the hapless husband who is too blind to see that his wife is manipulating him. Cook Jr’s performance is only second to Sterling Hayden’s Johnny Clay. He provides Clay with a level headed coolness that is very reminiscent of the character Danny Ocean in the Ocean’s Eleven film. It would not be surprising if The Killing inspired Sinatra’s Ocean’s Eleven film as it came out four years after The Killing. Plus the original Ocean’s Eleven ends in a fashion that is very similar to the ending in Kubricks’s film.

Sure The Killing may not be considered original by today’s standards, but that should not be considered a knock against the film. The film succeeds as an entertaining heist film that takes a familiar formula and executes it extremely well.





The Killing is part of our The Must See List series.

Dogtooth More Unsettling Than Dentures

Dogtooth

When it comes to Academy Award nominations there are certain types of films that you can bank on. Period pieces and war related films tend to stand a better chance at being nominated than a risk-taking dramatic film whose content would shock many. So it is somewhat surprising, and rather refreshing, when the Academy Nominating Committee thinks outside of the box and show some love to a film like Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth.

Nominated in the Best Foreign Language film category, Dogtooth is a bold examination of what lengths some people will go to protect their children from the evils of the world. Three siblings (Aggelikki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis) spend their lives confined within the walls of their parents (Christos Stergiouglou, Michele Valley) estate. Fearful of the horrors that their father (Stergiouglou) has told them of the outside world, the three teenagers are home schooled. Yet their education is not what most would consider proper learning. They learn a new form of vocabulary where words such as “phone” refer to the saltshaker. The parents use these tactics to ensure that their children never wonder about the outside world. The only outsider allowed into the family’s home is Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou), a security guard at the father’s factory who is paid to handle the son’s (Passalis) sexual awakening. When Christina steps beyond her bounds, the ramifications threaten to destroy the perfect little world that the parents have worked so hard to create.

Dogtooth’s premise is similar to M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village yet the actual content could not be more different. Dogtooth takes a far more realistic approach and, as a result, more disturbing examination of the issues of isolation and the evils of the world at large. It is fascinating to see the lengths to which the parents go in order to keep their family’s peaceful existence a float. What we would deem as excessive child abuse they would consider a necessary means to ensure their children remain innocent and pure.

The interesting thing is that Lanthimos’ seems to be suggesting that human nature, even in a childlike state, is anything but pure. The fact that the parents hired Christina is proof that they knew that it would be impossible to suppress the urges of a growing male with mere words. The perplexing thing is that they never even consider that women would have the same sexual urges. It is this misstep that leads to cracks in their seamless world.

Dogtooth is the type of film I could see Stanley Kubrick making if he was alive today. Although their situation would be considered strange by most, Lanthimos never treats his characters like freaks. They are merely a loving family who, for the most part, know no other way of life. The performances are outstanding all around. I especially liked Christos Stergiouglou’s work as “Father”. He creates one of the more memorable villains to grace the screen in a long time.

Despite its, at times, shocking content, Dogtooth is far closer to truth than fiction. If you really think about it, how do we know the things we know? Besides school, a large portion of who we are is directly linked to who raised us. The words we know are based on what others have decided on well before we were even born. It is tough to imagine our world any differently yet that is exactly what Lanthimos does. He questions what is worse? Being isolated from the outside world? Or living in a world where you feel the need to isolate your children? Similar to the film’s wonderful ending, this is a question that the viewer will have to answer themselves.