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Dom Robinson reviews
Universal
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 0618592
- Running time: 92 minutes
- Year: 1994
- Pressing: 2004
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: None
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: French dialogue only
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £15.99
- Extras: Trailer, Interviews
Director:
- Roger Avary
(Glamorama, Glitterati, Killing Zoe, Mr Stitch, Rules of Attraction, The Worm Turns)
Producer:
- Samuel Hadida
Screenplay:
- Roger Avary
Music:
- tomandandy
Cast:
- Zed: Eric Stoltz
Zoe: Julie Delpy
Eric: Jean-Hughes Anglade
Oliver: Gary Kemp
Francois: Tai Thai
Ricardo: Bruce Ramsay
Jean: Kario Salem
Claude: Salvator Zuereb
Bank security guard: Ron Jeremy
Roger Avary is one of Quentin Tarantino‘s colleagues and friends, having written dialogue for, and done other work, on some of his films, so Universal jumped on the typical bandwagon to splash “from the director of Kill Bill – Quentin Tarantino”, despite the fact he’s just down as the ‘Executive Producer’ – a term that can mean anything from doing actual work on a film to simply owning the studio. I’d presume QT does NOT own Artisan Entertainment, since he has his own company, A Band Apart, and that he does get involved but it’s such a usually-meaningless occupation title.
Back to the film, though, and as the film begins, Zed (Eric Stoltz, right with Julie Delpy) has just arrived in Paris to work on a bank job with an old friend from his childhood he hasn’t seen in the last 12 years, junkie Eric (Jean-Hughes Anglade). Before Eric drops by and gives him a surprise, Zed spends the night – and a friendly post-coital conversation with call-girl Zoe (Julie Delpy).
It takes until halfway through the film, during which the on-going drugs sequences between Zed, Eric and the latter’s flatmates, including Gary Kemp, go on a ridiculously long time, before we get to the bank heist itself, held at the only bank in town to be open on Bastille Day, so they think as long as they shut up shop everything will be fine and the police won’t take any interest. Once there, things inevitably go tits up for the robbers, particularly when we find Zoe works there too and, later, takes matters into her own hands (see the picture below-right).
Normally, to go into more detail about the film would spoil things, but while I won’t do that for the bank heist section, before we get to that there’s not a massive amount going on that has any relevance – save for the fact that the two Z-named characters are going to meet up later. The three main actors do their roles as well as the script allows, and Gary Kemp stands out amongst the rest of the robbers, but as for the rest none of them have anything to make them differentiate themselves from each other at all. Porn star fans will note that there’s an appearance from overweight how-does-he-get-the-girls? adult actor Ron Jeremy.
Apparently the title, ‘Killing Zoe’, translates from Latin to ‘Killing Life’, which is something that popped into Roger Avary’s head and intrigued me. This doesn’t come across in the film itself, as Julie Delpy’s character never ends up in 100% danger like that as you’d expect.
The picture is framed in an anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen ratio and looks very good, although there are a couple of scenes, such as early on, where the encoding isn’t quite all it could be. The Dolby Surround soundtrack performs a perfunctory role, doing what it needs to and that’s about it – not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s not particularly outstanding.
The extras are even less so, as we’re greeted only with but two things, both presented in 4:3 with film clips cropped to that format – a trailer lasting just over 90 seconds, and 10 minutes of cast/crew interviews.
The main menu has some animation and sound, there are a reasonable number of chapters with 15 throughout the movie, but the fact there are no English subtitles is a real pain because the French accent often spoken is too fast to always catch it. Those which are in French dialogue are subtitled in English, though.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.