Killing Zoe (1994)

Really Surprised!

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Zed (Eric Stoltz) arrives in Paris, goes to a hotel room and has sex with call-girl Zoe (Julie Delpy). His lowlife friend Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade) pulls Zoe out of the shower and throws her out of the room naked. Eric is the leader and Zed is the safecracker. Their group goes to rob a bank where Zoe happens to be a worker. Zed is shocked that people are getting killed right from the start and the job goes wrong.Coming out at around the same time, this was overshadowed by Pulp Fiction. It certainly isn't as well-written or well-constructed. Zed is a slacker-type and isn't a compelling lead character. His druggie self is low-energy and isn't that interesting. The first act with Julie Delpy is memorable but the middle is completely forgettable. The bank robbery regains some interest.

This film has a lot of Tarintino influence in it, especially as he helped director Roger Avary make it. Like From Dusk Til Dawn, Killing Zoe spends the first half of the movie setting the scene and the rest of the movie with the action. Killing Zoe is a low budget film made in Los Angeles with a few Parisian shots. This is also Avary's first movie and I think he has some talent.Zed (Eric Stolz) has been invited to Paris by an old friend, Eric (Jean-Hughes Anglade) to crack a safe in a bank. Zed is a professional, and we see this as he sets to work opening a safe, yet he is a quiet humble man who prefers to make love than to kill. He is also a man who is easily manipulated and Eric does this quite regularly in the movie. We see Zed being forced into taking drugs and having women dragged away from him because Eric doesn't particularly like them. He is also taken of a tour through a very dark side of Paris where we see drugs, sleazy women, and men screwing like animal (I use such terminology because it is only for the selfish desire of pleasure). The next day, Bastille Day, he then must participate in a daring bank robbery. Daring because everybody is hung over, or still on drugs; it is a high security bank; and it seems very little planning has gone into it.Eric is not the typical Hollywood robber. He kills at a whim and has no preferences to who he will kill. He murders a woman and a man and lets another man go free. In fact Eric seems to have a thing against women as he brutally throws Zoe (Julie Delpy) out of the room when he first meets Zed and throws another whore across the room when she tries to seduce Zed (even though he cannot understand her). He kills people on a whim and represents the worst that humanity can offer.Zoe is another character who begins as a prostitute yet does not want to think of herself as one. She needs to money to get through school and just considers the job as a little thing on the side. Yet she knows what she is, and even though she considers herself beautiful and refined, everybody else treats her as a whore. The reality of what she does hits home when she listens to three men tell a joke about a whore.Killing Zoe is a reasonable movie and good for a low budget production. Much of the movie was spoken in French which is supposed to reflect the fact that it was in France, but this didn't irritate me as it did in Stargate when everybody spoke ancient Egyptian. Still it is a good movie and worth a watch if you can handle drugs and brutal violence.

On my view, I do admit I was a bit disappointed. Give it a few views, I was entertained intensely. First we have Paris, one of the most beautiful cities of the world, though we don't get to see much of it in this. Granted, this is no Pulp Fiction, some of it's dialogue with it's intellectual humor, leads us to question Quentin might of got his pen a little wet here. Like Reservoir Dogs, we have a heist gone wrong, amidst a little frank and shocking violence. (Eric) Jean Hughes Anglande has invited a childhood friend over, safe cracker Zed (Stoltz) he hasn't seen in some time. They're to do over a big bank on Bastille day, where the night before they get on the p**s and H, so obviously we're in the hand of some real experts. This too becomes a shock to Zed, who's only given a day's notice, not even having time to checked the bank out. In part, as seen to the amateur display of activities by our thieves, in these ugly masks, you could silently label this as an anti drug movie. Now here's the fun angle to the title. On the day of Zed's arrival, he's sent an escort, Zoe, (Julie Delpy) who just happens to work at the same bank, they do over, where Zed caught at a pivotal moment, towards it's end, is forced to make a choice, and I did too like the way it ended. Too, Eric's drunken admittance of aids, to Zed, made sense in the way he literally shoved Zoe out of his room, after the two's little interlude. Loved the cool opening plus it's title song, where were shown numerous streets of Paris, as if from a driver's POV. I loved the end song too, with Delpy saying "Let me show you the real Paris". Also Stoltz's whacked out POV, of visible music tunes, drifting out of friend, Anglande's trumpet. Not for all Tarantino fans.

Killing Zoe revolves around Zed who was invited to Paris to contribute in a bank robbery.Unfortunately that's all the story plot contains. Rest is all about unnecessary violence which really don't make any sense.There's been also some scenes of drugs depiction and consumption.Also there is no twist in storyline,weak plot and very predictable.The only strong link of the movie is the presence of Julie Delphy who looked extremely charming.Its obvious to expect more from this movie but it do not stands anywhere around its expectations.