Killing Zoe is easily one of my favorite movies. And for Roger's directorial
debut, he did a fine job. The plot: American safecracker Zed (Eric Stoltz)
flies to Paris in order to rob a bank on Bastille Day with his AIDS-infected
childhood friend, Eric (Jean-Hughes Anglade). Before the big day, Zed
falls in love with an interesting prostitude named Zoe (Julie Delpy).
After Eric kicks her out of Zed's hotel room, the two hook up with the
rest of the bank robber crew and go out for a night of hardcore drug
abuse. The next morning while still in a drugged out stupor from the
night before, they roundup some cartoon masks and guns and charge into
the bank, unfortunately, Zoe just happens to work in this bank.
Things begin to get ugly after the alarm goes off and the bank customers
start getting shot. Unaware of whats going on upstairs, Zed is
working on the safe while his friend Eric slowly drifts into madness.
It all ends with a bloody shootout and a final showdown between friends.
This is just such a cool movie with so much meaning behind it, especially
for a first film. The first time I saw it, I really didn't know what
to make of it. But now eachtime I watch it I find something else Roger
might have wanted to say with this movie. The title is misleading at
first due to the fact that Zoe is never really killed in the movie, but
the Latin word "Zoe" means "life." Therefore the title could mean "Killing Life"
which is what basically Eric does through the whole film. There are way
too many possible messages in the movie to list here, but stay tooned for
my upcoming essay on the film. In the meantime, check out
Godfrey Cheshire review. He seems to cover many aspects of the film
in his review.
Now, many people whom I like to refer to as the "QT-teenie boppers" hate
this movie before even watching it. Or they have seen it, and just call
it a Tarantino rip-off. This is soo far from the truth. Sure
there are similarities between the two filmmakers works, but this is
bound to happen since they grew up together. Of course they will
have an influence on eachother. If you haven't seen this movie yet
and already prejudged it, go rent it now and you may just like it.
Useless Trivia:
Remember the security officer Ricardo blew away with a shotgun when
the crew first entered the bank? The guy who played as that officer
was none other than the porn legend himself, Ron Jeremy!
Artisan Entertainment is making
a brand new Killing Zoe Director's Cut DVD!! Everything from picture
quality to menu design will be under Roger Avary's supervision. It will
even contain some of Roger's early film shorts! Well I'm jumping in
bunches. Right now there are some rights issues over the Director's Cut
but expect the disc to come out sometime this year.
Le Menu:
Here is the complete script
available at Avary's Domain.
Here's the trailer made by Tomandandy.
Looking for a new desktop theme? Download this one created by Scott Davis.
Wanna check out some of the images and sounds?
Heres some info on the kickass soundtrack.
Info on the disapointing laserdisc.
Go back to the main page