Killing Zoe

I felt this intense need to see Killing Zoe. It was unexplained. It came fast and serious. I had to see it. My best guess is I wanted to see Eric Stoltz in an edgy movie. I loved the guy in Kicking and Screaming (see that at all costs) and enjoyed him in Mr. Jealousy. But I vaguely remembered him playing the drug dealer in Pulp Fiction and being very, very good at it. So I really, really wanted to see Killing Zoe.

Killing Zoe is directed by Roger Avary, co-writer of Pulp Fiction. That's right! Tarantino didn't do it alone! Avary also directed Rules of Attraction, which I liked and thought improved upon the book it was based upon. So I had hopes for Killing Zoe.

It started off well. There was a strange love scene between Stoltz and Julie Delpy followed by a conversation that was well written. Then Eric entered and the movie lost me. The movie's charm vacated the premises.

My first complaint is that the drugged out trip through the city goes on for way too long. I know what the director was trying to do. He wanted to give hints that Anglade's Eric was not the way Stoltz's Zed remembered him. He was worse. Scarier. Unpredictable. He did it. He just took way too long to do it.

What followed can best be described as a heist gone wrong, but it never really had the edge or suspense of what it attempted to portray. The only character I could really root for was Julie Delpy's, and she was hardly in it. Ditto for Eric Stoltz, although he is arguably the main character. Stoltz does his best, but the movie ends up being a bit of a mess just like Eric, played by Jean-Hugues Anglade. Anglade chews the scenery a bit, but he does get to be part of the film's best moment, when his crazed character snaps a burst of light out of the air.

I was debating myself as to whether what I was watching was actually okay or not for most of the movie. If the film had pulled off a great ending, all would have been forgiven. But the final climax doesn't really satisfy. Some attempts at clever dialogue don't fit with the mess at the end and really detract from any sense of real suspense. And Stoltz just gets the shit beat out of him. Honestly, I just wanted him to do the same to Eric (Anglade's character, not Stoltz).

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