User reviews

My Rating : 6/10

I liked the premise, the actors were well-chosen for their parts and in all honesty, it's a decent film from Cassavetes.

However, just felt overall it missed the point on several accounts and I was hoping for more - just more interesting intense drama would have been nice.

I'm going with 6/10.

I've shown this movie to baffled girlfriends and eye-rolling friends who've left the room after twenty minutes. The picture was essentially unreleased upon its completion in 1976, and is now available on video only because of the retrospectives of Cassavetes' work that followed his death. The movie is considered bewildering even by many Cassavetes champions, but for me it ranks among the greatest American movies. As Cosmo Vitelli, the strip-joint owner who's a clown who thinks he's a king, the sublimely reptilian Ben Gazzara leans into an offstage mike and tells the audience, "And if you have any complaints--any complaints at all--we'll throw you right out on your ass." Like Jake LaMotta, or Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, Cosmo is a walking aria of male self-destruction. He finally pays off the shylocks he's in hock to for his place--the Crazy Horse West--and celebrates with a gambling spree that puts him right back where he started. To pay his debts, Cosmo agrees to murder a Chinese kingpin the L.A. mob has marked for death--but that only gives the barest indication of the strange, ecstatic poetry of Cassavetes' greatest and farthest-out-on-a-limb movie. The movie is a strangely crumpled form of film noir; a classic Cassavetes character portrait, with more than the usual romanticism and self-disgust; a super-subliminal essay on Vietnam and Watergate; and an example of a one-of-a-kind lyricism that's closer to 2001 than a gangster picture. With its odd rhythms, Warholish color and substance-altered performances, it's one of the rare movies for which there exists no point of comparison.

Bizarre and non se·qui·tur best describe this nutty story that no film editor seems to have touched. But a magnificent performance by Ben Gazzara makes this otherwise artsy snooze fest very enjoyable.

So dissapointed. Not in the movie as a whole, but with its oddly drawn out ending. My 6/10 is for the original, uncut version. I would be interested in watching Cassavettas edited one, of a few years later. In my opinion this is a fairly good, independent film. In fact one of the best I've seen. It is gritty, and stylish and interestingly filmed. It builds its tension, and draws you into the main characters dilemma. That is until the last 40 minutes, or so. Then it just free falls into nothing. Too bad!

Like other (usually US) films The Murder... is disturbing and mesmerizing. The dirty quality of images (in some moments bewilderingly amateurish, ins others incredibly sophisticated), the acting, the disjointed plot, the weirdness of some scenes (like the one in the car parking), Gazzara's sublime acting, the wonderful choice of places and times... it all gives you an impression of the States like they really are, not the sanitized image you find in so many Holy-Wood flicks (not all of them, I admit, but about 85%...). Such a movie is like The Searchers or Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, unfathomable and greater than life, but in some way disturbingly like life. And the character of Cosmo Vitelli is one of those enigmatic figures that leaves you wondering whether you have been shown the story of an idiot or the story of a saint. Unforgettable.

Fascinating Cassavetes work has Ben Gazzara playing Cosmo Vitelli, a California night club owner who, after racking up a huge gambling debt, is given the opportunity to clear it by killing a Chinese bookie. Cassavetes's distinctive style allows for a raw emotional feel that couldn't have been captured by any other director, and, like A Woman Under the Influence, it puts the viewer directly into a very real world populated by very real characters. However, at points the film loses itself amid some of it's lengthy, nearly plotless sequences. Necessary viewing for Cassavetes fans – people looking for a straightforward story should look elsewhere. One of the truly unique creations of 1970s cinema.

A film like John Cassavetes' "The Killing of A Chinese Bookie" is one of those films that Roger Ebert often says "either grabs you or leaves you". This one grabbed me. It is perhaps the least liked film of the precious few Cassavetes wrote and directed, but it's an honest film that doesn't pull any punches. It's kind of a predecessor to "Goodfellas" and "Casino".

While Cassavetes' film lacks the polish of the two Scorsese films, I think that benefits "Killing". This is not a glossy, "high-concept" film that Hollywood prefers (although Scorsese is certainly not "high-concept"); it is a rough, confusing muddle and that is probably one of the reasons the film remains highly unseen by a great many people. However, I like rough, confusing films and one of the great pleasures is trying to figure everything out. The beauty of a John Cassavetes film is that there are no easy answers and he likes you to make your own reading on the film.

As always with a Cassavetes film, he gives juicy parts to his regulars. Ben Gazzara is excellent as Cosmo Vitelli, the nightclub owner who needs to perform the title deed to save his club. Seymour Cassel gives a strong performance as a friend of Cosmo. Cassel and Gazarra are two of those actors whose names you won't recognize, but when you see their faces, you'll recognize them. They love to take risks with their performances and you can see the payoffs for yourselves.

After a half-assed release by Buena Vista in 1989, "Killing of A Chinese Bookie" is finally available on tape and DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment. The transfer is clean and looks great and the letterbox presentation shows that Cassavetes knew how to use his camera, even if the aspect ratio is small.

This is a sparse movie, with the weight of the drama being shown rather than said. The characters portrayed are all very rich and believable, each having a distinct personality. The dialog seemed mostly ad-lib. I felt that the pacing of the film, the rhythm of the scenes, to be a little chaotic. This made it a challenge to stay absorbed, but ultimately worthwhile. I didn't find the garage scene as tense as it should have seemed. Did the second gangster die? The story resolves fittingly, with the ends all loose and untidy. The future is bleak, just as the present is. I saw the 1978 cut. I don't know if I will watch the 1976 version. This was my first Cassavetes film. I would recommend it if you don't want to trust gangsters.

THE KILLING OF A Chinese BOOKIE is John Cassavetes fascinating look into the world of Cosmo Vitelli, owner of the Crazy Horse West, a California strip club. Cosmo, played by Ben Gazzara, owes a fortune in gambling debts, and agrees to commit a murder to payoff the loan. It's a set-up from the get go because the mob never believed he could pull it off, and was hoping that he would be killed, and then they would inherit his club. Cassavetes creates an homage to The French New Wave by employing surreal settings and improvisational dialog to create a Dadaist framework for the tale. Many scenes begin in near blackness, and abruptly, LA sunlight streams into the murky darkness while actors lines ricochet and overlap. The entertainment at the club is not the standard "Bump and Grind", but a strange 'Theater of The Absurd' where Cosmo orchestrates the action, or "he'll throw you out on your ass". Where Martin Scorsese used high energy rock'n'roll to highlight this same gangster demimonde, Cassavetes employs a more idiosyncratic soundtrack to heighten the psychological dimensions of the piece. Ben Gazzara provides an unforgettable portrait of a man grappling with a life that is beyond his ability to control. Also, Seymour Cassel puts in a wonderful performance as a mobbed up club owner. All of Cassavetes's films are noteworthy, and THE KILLING OF A Chinese BOOKIE is one of his finest.

I found "The Killing" excruciatingly difficult to sit through because it was so repetitive. A few tropes (notably the weird, un-sexy cabaret act,) are played out over and and over with minor variations, providing a structural backbone for the movie. As a result, "The Killing" is an innovative thriller trapped inside a bloated self-indulgent work of improvisational theater.

This movie was obviously a major influence on David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive". Compare "The Killing"'s Mr. Sophistication and his Delovelies to "Mulholland"'s sketchy night club performers. The coffee-drooling scene in "Mulholland" is pretty clearly a Lynchian riff on a similar scene from "The Killing". I'm glad I saw "The Killing...", but primarily because for its historical value.

'The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie' is one of the most interesting and original movies I've ever seen. I would include it with movies such as 'Blow Up', 'Performance' and 'Eraserhead', which may not have much to do with each other on the surface, but are what I would call puzzlers. On first viewing you go "well, it was different... I'm not sure if I LIKED it, but it sure was original..." Then later you find yourself haunted by it. You go back and watch it again and again, and each time you discover some nuance or emotion or idea, or a certain scene or line that resonates. These movies are ones that STAY with you.

The plot of 'Bookie' is pretty straightforward. A strip club owner gets into debt with the Mob and is pressured into murdering a bookie. Other directors such as Scorsese or Frankenheimer or Friedkin or Mann could have made an tight, exciting thriller out of such a plot. But John Cassavetes goes for a completely different approach, and doesn't play by "the rules". He ignores the obvious way of proceeding, slows things down, focuses on characters and relationships and moments, and ends up with a cinematic poem.

That may sound pretentious to some, so be it, but that's what it is. The beauty of the photography combined with the improvised dialogue by some of the best character actors of American post-War movies (Gazzara, Cassel, Carey), makes this movie unique. There's nothing quite like this movie, and it's one that if you sit back and just let it do its thing, will remain absolutely unforgettable.

One of the 1970s greatest achievements.

"The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" a mid to late 70's picture done in low budget style is still one that had a real feel and compelling story to it. Set in L.A. it involves Cosmo(Ben Gazzara) a shady strip club owner who loves to gamble on the side all of a sudden owes plenty of money to the mob. To help save his business and stable of beautiful ladies he's given a task of dealing with the Chinese in L.A.'s "Chinatown". Guess from the title what that involves. Overall nothing great still it entertains and it's style of low budget gangster action thrills with gunfire and eye candy is given in the form of some skin shots of nude dancers. Overall good late night underground art house flick to check out sometime.

It's been said by many that "Chinese Bookie" is the toughest of any Cassavetes films to digest. There are many slow passages (here I'm referring to the 1976 original version), many moments of embarrassing awkwardness, as you are forced to watch extended sequences filled with players who aren't any more talented or skilled than those at your local summer stock production or junior high school play.

Yet, it's very difficult not to be compelled by the story, especially as embodied in the character of Cosmo Vitelli, who Ben Gazzara seems to channel effortlessly, as if he were a second, transparent skin.

Cosmo is a fascinating character. He owns a rather ratty strip club/cabaret joint on the Sunset Strip that fronts production values and performers of the qualities mentioned earlier, does middling business, and spends nearly every dime he makes "living the high life" or the "the image" of what someone in his profession should espouse. He swills $100 bottles of Champagne, cruises around town in his plush chauffeured Caddy, an entourage of bimbettes in tow, usually to a dive mob-run poker joint that inevitably lands him in massive debt.

He would be an easy character to scorn or mock in another film, but not as Gazzara and Cassavetes portray him. Cosmo is proud of his little world and his accomplishments, and further more, could not give a damn if anyone doesn't approve of them. "You have no style," he sneers at gangster Al Ruban early in the film after the thug condescends to him.

As weird as it sounds, you have to respect someone like that, even when he finds himself increasingly trapped by circumstances and succumbing to self-doubt. At the end of the picture he says how important it is to "feel comfortable" with oneself and while we don't believe for a second that Cosmo really feels this way, we know he *wants* to. It's a refreshingly human response in a movie that only contains more of the same.

It's not a conventional audience pleaser by any means, but if you've watched other Cassavetes pictures and like his candid stream-of-consciousness style, give the 1978 edited version of "Bookie" a watch before you see the original. Cass not only cut half an hour of footage, he did it with (what else?) incredible style and creativity, really tightening the structure of the film as a whole, considerably juicing its already engaging premise.

Quite possibly the most overlooked gem from one of the '60s and '70s most commercially under-appreciated directors.

"The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" is a haunting dreamscape. The characters and action emerge from an inky darkness to leave a series of impressions upon the viewer. The mind stitches together these impressions to make a cohesive and simplistic storyline that ultimately is secondary to MOOD. It's a raging sea of emotions & actions: conflict, power struggle, greed, ambition, pride, wanting, desperation, fate, trapped, claustrophobic, helplessness, failure, success, doom, fear. Throughout the movie, there's a visual obscurity, an emotional numbness and disconnect that is reminiscent of a murky dream world.

I must confess I am not familiar with the writing and directorial works of John Cassavetes. Although it was released the same year I graduated from high school, I never heard of this movie until last week. I was listening to a podcast from a couple years ago where Bret Easton Ellis interviewed Larry Clark and they both expressed their admiration for this movie. Their praise of Cassavetes and of this particular film inspired me to watch it. I have no special insight or perspective on Cassavetes' work, I only know what I saw and felt as I watched.

The cast is comprised of character actors and unknowns, which only adds to the dreamlike experience. A big name movie star in any of the rolls would have broken the spell. Yes, I consider Ben Gazzara to be a glorified character actor, not a Hollywood star. He was perfectly cast here. The sequences involving the annoying, ironically-named "Mr. Sophistication" flanked by the world's least enthusiastic strippers create that drowning feeling we sometimes get in a dream where we want to wake up, but can't. There is nothing visually "cinematic" about this movie. It's primarily dark - very dark, choppy and unsettling. But, all of that faithfully serves its intention.

Well, at least Cassavettes was never boring. How many directors can say that? This is the oddest of his films, a strange riff on gangster/noir pictures that starts at the end and takes us right back there. The night club manager, player by Gazzara, has just finished paying for his joint, as he would say. He goes out and loses some money gambling and finds that he has to kill someone in order to pay off his debt. A normal Hollywood film would make the owner an anti-hero, one to pity. This film just lets him be the slime he is. In one scene, he tries to tell a woman that his mother and father didn't love him. She tells him that she doesn't care and he should leave. That is, in some ways, the point. He doesn't have to be a louse and a loser, but he is. Ironically, he gives a speech later about choosing who we are and being comfortable, two things that he has failed at miserably. Like all of Cassavettes' losers, Gazzara is easy to hate. The painful part for the viewer is that we see the pain in their lives too. Most films, even great ones, leave you feeling one way or another about a character, but Cassavettes' films leave you stumped. I guess that that is great, but it is very odd and hard to understand.

John Cassavetes was a wonderful character actor whose portrayals always had a edge to them. It is a theme he attempts to carry over into his role as a director, but instead of edge it comes off as dirty and seedy, much like Los Angeles in the seventies. There are issues with scene cuts and editing which lead to confusion. Gazzaras acting style is so laid back as are most of the rest of the performances that it brings to mind the behavior of people who had ingested certain substances that were prevalent during the seventies. If you ever wanted to see a film that was part Russ Meyer and part John Waters, this is it.

This is another example of great filmmaking from John Cassavettes. Using his signature directing style (fluid camera movement, rack focusing, uncomfortably close two-shots), he creates a sprawling visual masterpiece loaded with social commentary as he explores the story of a man caught in a downward spiral in the underworld. Very, very good.

Ok. Let's say you consider yourself no slouch at film appreciation or criticism. Your friends say you MUST watch The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. You watch. And you come away thinking it's mostly a big bowl of bloated, talky, overlong, poorly paced, drearily written, under-acted film verite that, and anyone who stays to the end, deserves a medal.

This film strikes me as an movie experiment, where all the actors are given one direction per scene, and then told to ad-lib all 137 minutes or whatever interminable length it runs.

I simply do not see any "genius" in this movie whatsoever. But I want to, because I don't want to seem stupid or dense, or artistically ignorant. Since I know I'm neither, then I can only conclude that this is a movie that critics like to use to seem smarter than they are, because no matter how I try, I don't see it. And I'll bet most people who watch it, won't see its merits either.

On the plus side, it's got one of the coolest titles in modern film history. A movie with a title that cool deserves a better treatment. And it's also an interesting slice of 1970s Los Angeles life.