The Killing

An ex-con (Sterling Hayden) masterminds a daring racetrack robbery.

The Killing is, in many ways, an evolution of John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle. Both are heist pictures, and both star Sterling Hayden, but director Stanley Kubrick puts his own stamp on The Killing by telling the story in a non-linear fashion, zigzagging back and forth in the timeline to show how the various pieces of the crime came together.

The result is a technically solid, and groundbreaking, film, that helped bridge the gap between Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle and modern films such as Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.

Unfortunately, The Killing suffers from some awful voice-over narration (supposedly studio-mandated) and a lot of expository dialog. These two combine to give the film a very Dragnet-esque feel that ends up robbing the film of much of its edge. Compounding this is a solid, but unspectacular cast that does little to elevate the story. The biggest star here is Kubrick himself, with his meticulous attention to detail and inventive camera work.

Had The Killing been made later in Kubrick’s career, when he could attract big name talent and command a larger budget, it would likely rank as one of his finest pictures, but as is, it’ll likely appeal to genre fans and Kubrick aficionados only.