★★★★★ 5
The Mastery of Stanley Kubrick
We're all children of Kubrick aren't we? Is there anything that you can do that he hasn't done? - Paul Thomas Anderson.
One of the most true statements about a great director from another great director. Stanley Kubrick's The Killing is a harsh piece of filmmaking that is the true definition of a film noir heist movie. The characters are not glamorous and they are not symphatetic. They are merely real and that is all you need in a movie. These characters move through the intricate plot with the masterful direction of Kubrick guiding them through it and speaking the crisp dialogue from pulp novelist Jim Thompson. With that combination The Killing is noir at its finest. A great early masterpiece from Kubrick. This Criterion Collection blu-ray also includes another early Kubrick work, Killer's Kiss, about a boxer who falls in love with a woman who lives next door to him and thus gets caught up in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with her shady boss. A great companion movie for The Killing. But there is one disappointment with this Criterion release. When it was first annouced that they were releasing this film, I had high hopes that they would release the rare Kubrick film Fear and Desire with this, but I was sadly disappointed. Maybe there is a seperate Criterion release for that film in the near future, we can only hope. But all in all this is a great blu-ray, highly recommended for fans of Kubrick or fans of the film noir genre.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2011
