The Killing [Criterion Collection] [2 Discs] [1956]

Sterling Hayden is cool and tough as always. Delivers an excellent performance with an unfortunate end. Tough as nails caper Loved it!

This film is a MASTERPIECE from Stanley Kubrick by The Criterion Collection.!

A great look at early Kubrick and his take on a more traditional movie. Tremendously entertaining.

I own over 900 Blue Ray and DVD this is a must for the collection excellent Film Noir movie

Stanley Kubrick's coming-out party from the mid '50s is a startlingly accurate prediction of film's future. By way of a non-linear narration and a few remarkably fresh transitions, Kubrick adds considerable weight and magnitude to a tangled heist tale and its focus on the crooks behind a slick, daring stickup of the local racetrack. Confused by the film's radical new approach to storytelling, test audiences hated the first cut, leading to studio meddling and an almost-complete disintegration of its marketing budget. Kubrick fought back, though, and with the obvious exception of a horribly heavy-handed deadpan narration, the finished product seems virtually untouched. Concerned mostly with the planning and hand-wringing before the big theft, The Killing tensely builds anticipation throughout before finally boiling over in a machine gun-paced robbery scene, terse payoff and all-too-brief elaboration on the major players' ultimate fates. Acceptably acted at best, the real stars of this picture are the complex plot and the harvest of fresh ideas going on behind the lens. A clear inspiration for Tarantino's big hits of the '90s, it's a daring and stylish major market debut for the famed director that hints at the lengths his development would ultimately take the medium.

This movie was filmed in the early 50's, but with today's Blu-ray technology, the clarity makes this movie so much fun to watch and enjoy no matter what time of the day. Great story and the ending was a surprise, makes you take a second look at how movies end today compared to then. A must see if you haven't already. 5 stars!!