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#197 - The Killing
Stanley Kubrick, 1956
Follows a group of thieves as they proceed to pull off a heist at a racetrack.
Kubrick's take on the heist film proves to be a fairly solid noir in the process and it has a sufficient level of innovation to elevate it beyond the genre's typical fare. The voice-over stands out thanks to its blunt delivery in the style of a police report and also helps to capture the film's constant jumping around in time during the course of the heist. Though the technique of showing the different angles of a heist one at a time rather than cutting between them happening simultaneously has become a bit overused in recent years, here it still plays out reasonably well. The characters are par for the course - though it is very much an ensemble piece, Sterling Hayden stands out as the square-jawed brute responsible for carrying out the heist (not entirely unlike the one he played in The Asphalt Jungle - hell, they might as well be the same), as does Elisha Cook Jr. (who I recognised as being that guy from House on Haunted Hill) as a nervous pushover who unwittingly ends up jeopardising things.
As befitting a film that trades on intensity, the film keeps things nice and short (clocking in at a lean 85 minutes), which is definitely helped by Kubrick's very utilitarian direction. The inevitable fallout from the heist isn't dragged out too long, either, while the various facets of the heist are captured reasonably well and spliced together in such a way that it's still easy enough to follow along despite its relatively unconventional structure. Though it's probably a bit too pulpy for its own good at times and the characters lack a bit too much definition even for a Kubrick film (though it is early Kubrick), it's definitely a solid example of a classic noir and deserves to be recognised as such.
Stanley Kubrick, 1956
Follows a group of thieves as they proceed to pull off a heist at a racetrack.
Kubrick's take on the heist film proves to be a fairly solid noir in the process and it has a sufficient level of innovation to elevate it beyond the genre's typical fare. The voice-over stands out thanks to its blunt delivery in the style of a police report and also helps to capture the film's constant jumping around in time during the course of the heist. Though the technique of showing the different angles of a heist one at a time rather than cutting between them happening simultaneously has become a bit overused in recent years, here it still plays out reasonably well. The characters are par for the course - though it is very much an ensemble piece, Sterling Hayden stands out as the square-jawed brute responsible for carrying out the heist (not entirely unlike the one he played in The Asphalt Jungle - hell, they might as well be the same), as does Elisha Cook Jr. (who I recognised as being that guy from House on Haunted Hill) as a nervous pushover who unwittingly ends up jeopardising things.
As befitting a film that trades on intensity, the film keeps things nice and short (clocking in at a lean 85 minutes), which is definitely helped by Kubrick's very utilitarian direction. The inevitable fallout from the heist isn't dragged out too long, either, while the various facets of the heist are captured reasonably well and spliced together in such a way that it's still easy enough to follow along despite its relatively unconventional structure. Though it's probably a bit too pulpy for its own good at times and the characters lack a bit too much definition even for a Kubrick film (though it is early Kubrick), it's definitely a solid example of a classic noir and deserves to be recognised as such.