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KILLING ZOE, OR HOW I STOPPED WORRYING AND SET US UP THE BOMB
By Kevin - 03.22.01
WTF was the phrase of choice upon rediscovering this gem. I remember in 8th grade, one Friday night in the dead of summer, I was happily enthralled in one of the coolest movies I had ever seen on TV (it was on the Independent Film Channel). You see, I had just began French, and this film was partially in French (luckily it had sub-titles), plus it wasn’t one of those old black-and-white clunkers. Anyway, it was really cool, cept the only part I had seen so far was a sex scene for which nudity was actually shown (perhaps the first time ever on basic cable?), so I, being the 14 year old that I was, was having a grand old time. Anyway, my good friend Bokista calls and tells me to come over for a sleep over that he and our good friend Brendan are having, so I accept but say that we have to watch this kick ass French movie that I am currently viewing. I get over there soon after and turn the TV on, and it turns out that this film is a whole lot cooler than I first imagined. Violence, cool imagery, masks, orange walls, its all here. I never found out the title of the flik, and it had been bugging be ever since...
... that is until early March. See, I work at a Hollywood Video, and I get free rentals. I never know what the hell to do with them, so I tend to pick things randomly a lot. Anyway, I’m just carousing through the Action section, and lo and behold, I spy a box that says “From the producer of Reservoir Dogs”. Reservoir Dogs is, to me, one of the most OVERRATED movies ever…folks, there are a lot of better films out there if you like violence, crime or both (Zoe is one of them.) Needless to say, I pick up the box, flip it, and look at the back. It seems that this is close to what I have been searching for all these years….the box says that this is a crime film that takes place in France and deals with the robbing of a bank. OMFG, it’s THE FRENCH BANK ROBBERY MOVIE! I immediately rent it and pop it in when I get home...
Julie: RENT ME, RENT ME!
Killing Zoe is a film about an American, Zed (Eric Stotlz) who is called to Paris by a friend to assist in a bank heist on Bastille Day (the day that the French Revolution became militant and all the dirty and weak French peasents stormed the Bastille, this hugass <- (Hugh Jass) prison that in a way symbolism “The absolutism of the corrupt French monarchy.”) Upon arrival, he is given the star treatment, and calls a prostitute over to his hotel as per the request of his all to friendly cab driver. The prostitute is Zoe (Julie Delpy) and she is reason enough to rent the film. You get this nice shot of her topless, and she is a decent actress, but disappears for about 30 min after they “do it”. Zed’s friend Eric (Jean-Hughes Anglade, whose name for this movie should be changed to Jean Huge Ass, because his character is despicable). They kick the ho out, and begin plotting along with Eric’s friends as to how the heist is gonna be.
This is one of the only Killing Zoe pictures that I could get my hands on.
To basically sum up the plot, there are three distinct sections to this film: the sex section, the drugs section and the violence section. The first is, of course, the sex section, and it is fairly short (15 min or so). Then after Eric meets Zed and Zed meets all of Eric’s partners in crime, they go on a drug binge. They go to some blue light jazz club and drink, smoke and drop acid for about 30 min, but to my surprise, have all recovered fully by 7 am the next morning so that they can get their $$$.
The robbery begins, and so does lots of cool, stylized shooting. I don’t want to give anything more away, but there are definitely some images that you will remember when this is over.
BETTER THAN RESERVOIR DOGS, Killing Zoe manages to take everything good about the genre, spice it up with the introduction of another language, and bring it all together to make a satisfying film that leaves a good taste in your mouth.
Fuck Destroy All Monsters, rent Killing Zoe!
~Kevin
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