The plot is very contrived, and I found it difficult to believe the story or care about the characters. In spite of the fine acting, directing, and music, I found the film overall to be mediocre.
"It's eighty percent script and twenty percent you get great actors. There's nothing else to it." William Wyler
I must say I agree...It didn't grab me.
shareAgree. Just watched it for the first time and I don't understand why this is so highly regarded. The first scene is great, because it's lifted from the Hemingway short story but the rest of the movie is not very good. The main characters are unsymphatetic. The assurance detective Reardon lacks charisma and is kind of a douchebag. Burt Lancaster plays a weird wimpy douche too and Ava Garder is just a pretty face with no real depth to her character other than being yet another manipulative femme fatale. The plot is pointless mess and there's no emotional depth to it. The best film noirs have great dialogue, but this doesn't have any apart from the first scene that lifts it's dialogue from the original short story, but it's all downhill after that since the screenwriter is no Hemingway. A mediocre movie, imo.
shareThe melodramatic music was terrible. The story and acting was okay, but you're right, I just didn't care about the characters.
shareA great film noir with one of the greatest femme fatales of all time, Kitty Collins played by newcomer Ava Gardner. She done him wrong - the Swede played by Burt Lancaster. The story was written by no other than the great American writer, Ernest Hemingway. Hardly overrated.
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/80270/the-killers/
Ava was kinda meh, like she usually is. Burt did okay for his first big movie role.
I don't know what the book was like, so I can't comment on that. It doesn't mean the movie was the same. I didn't use the word overrated.
Ava and meh in the same sentence. Not possible. Did you see Barefoot Contessa. Mogambo. Night of the Iguana. Anyway…
BBC review
“I did something very wrong... once," sighs Burt Lancaster as he waits for The Killers of the title to put him out of his misery. Taken directly from Ernest Hemingway's original short story, it's a haunting opening that unspools a gripping tale of desire, duplicity and double-crossing rooted in a hard-boiled cynicism that's almost nihilistic. With Ava Gardner sizzling as the prerequisite femme fatale and a brilliant robbery sequence shot in one unbroken take, Robert Siodmak's noir is AS GOOD AS IT GETS.
The intro is pure Tarantino: a pair of laconic assassins drifting into the small town of Brentwood to terrorise the staff and clientele of a humble diner before heading off to pump some lead into Lancaster's boxer turned crook. Enter Edmond O'Brien's dogged insurance investigator, whose quest to find the beneficiary of Burt's policy enables scriptwriter Anthony Veiller and an uncredited John Huston to reveal his involvement in an unsolved heist.
"COMPELLING AND SUSPENSEFUL"
Through a complex series of interlocking flashbacks we meet his partners in crime and the voluptuous siren who played him for a fool - a devastating turn from Gardner in her breakthrough role. As gripping as the plot is, though, it's the movie's bleak, fatalistic mood - aided throughout by Elwood Bredell's chiaroscuro visuals and Miklos Rozsa's menacing score - that makes it such a compelling, suspenseful experience.”
"Ava and meh in the same sentence. Not possible."
You just saw it happen, didn't you? I'm not easily impressed with just a pretty face, especially when it's a bit manly.
Not impressed with the BBC either...
Is this a masculine face? The one on the right? Ava.
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/80270/the-killers/
Ava Gardner was one of the curviest women ever with a 19 inch waist. No plastic surgery. A perfect face and figure. Men loved her.
“According to The Vintage News, while visiting the writer, Papa Hemingway, at his lavish villa in Havana, Cuba, Ava Gardner decided to take a dip in his refreshing pool, and she didn't bother putting on a swim suit. After she emerged from the water and dried herself off, Hemingway apparently instructed his staff to hold off on cleaning duty. ‘The water is not to be emptied,’ he allegedly told them.”
I guess I have to ask if you like film noir? If so, what is your favorite film noir? Who do you like if not the BBC.
NY Times. New Yorker??
"Is this a masculine face?"
Yeah, kinda. And she definitely had a nose job. Which is okay, I'm not judging.
Film noir isn't my favourite genre, but I'm judging the movie on its own merits.
My point is that all movie critics are people. Sometimes you agree, sometimes you don't. Their opinion isn't worth a dime, though.
No nose job on this one. I have no idea where you are getting your information. And we get it, you didn’t like it. So I won’t quote the Times.
Still your favorite Film noir. I’m genuinely interested. If you don’t like film noir, then of course you wouldn’t like a film noir movie. And therefore you wouldn’t like this movie. But there might be others who are interested and who would love to see this movie. I hope they see it and are not dissuaded. The first 10 minutes are gold.
You can check her photos as a kid. The tip of her nose was definitely wider.
I never really thought about what my favourite film noir is, mmm-kay. I never said I don't like the genre. I'm perfectly able to enjoy a movie of any genre. If it's one of your favourite genres, I can see why you would look past its flaws.
THE KILLERS is playing in 35 mm at The Aero Theater in LA. Actually in Santa Monica on Montana. At 2pm on Saturday July 29.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0038669/mediaviewer/rm2584405249/
For those who are intrigued by film noir, or a really good movie made in 1946, or Ava. There’s will be a discussion on this movie and 4 others. Gilda, The Big Sleep, Postman, and Notorious. Either before or after the movie. But Ava is the one highlighted.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0038669/mediaviewer/rm2131420417/
Also, in July at The Aero is showing in 70 mm these great films: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, BOOGIE NIGHTS, TENET, THE UNTOUCHABLES, SPARTACUS, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, THE MASTER, THE WILD BUNCH, LAST ACTION HERO, ROMA, INHERENT VICE, APOCALYPSE NOW, BABYLON, ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD, YEAR OF THE DRAGON, LICORICE PIZZA, MALCOLM X and ZOOT SUIT. With Apocalypse Now, you have to be a member of American Cinema theque, as it is a personal copy of Scorcese. These movies play to a full house. And the audience is always great, open and energized. It was mentioned by the host of the Aero that no theater in the country or world is showing these films in 70 mm.
I saw the remake in 4k the night before and I liked it very much. After reading this is rated higher, I had high expectations. It's... alright? And I love noir.
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