Killing Zoe

It’s easy to guess why audiences are turned off by Roger Avary. He won an Oscar co-scripting Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, but if his two directorial efforts (this breakneck crime flick and 2002's Bret Easton Ellis adaptation The Rules of Attraction) are anything to go by, it’s likely that film’s crypto-heroics came courtesy of its director.

There’s none of Tarantino’s soft edges in Killing Zoe. We follow Zed (Stolz), a social and morally easy-going safecracker, as he’s dragged to Paris by his terrifyingly decadent childhood friend, Eric (Anglade), to help in a Bastille Day bank heist. Preparation for the job involves "living life", which in Eric’s debauched world means losing your mind to hard drugs at an underground Dixieland joint. Avary’s filmmaking feels as out of control as its protagonist. It sweeps you up in Eric’s Dionysian revelry and, like Zed, you’ll be clambering for a shower afterwards. [Jamie Dunn]

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