The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Forget that the film was directed by John Cassavetes or that it starred Ben Gazarra and just look at the story. From the title we know that a Chinese Bookie is killed and we eventually discover that the Gazarra character must carry out a murder to pay off his gambling debt. Unfortunately, by the time this is revealed in the film, most of the audience will be asleep. The main problems with this movie are that the story is ridiculous and the main character is not someone 'to root for'. Cosmo Vittelli (Gazarra) is a delusional, poor gambler who owns possibly the world's lousiest strip club and is not someone we dearly want to have succeed. He takes three of his strippers to watch him lose $23,000 at a gambling club and then we're supposed to hope he gets away with murdering a 'Chinese bookie' as a way of paying it off? I felt sympathy for the protagonist (Gazarra), but the guy was simply a fool. If he was someone to be admired and he accidentally got into debt to some criminals, then yes, I may have wanted him to succeed or maybe to get even. But the idiot paid off a huge debt at the start of the movie and then goes about getting into another one immediately after! By far the worst aspect of this movie (apart from the story) is the dialogue. It seems that Cassavetes wanted plenty of impromptu acting in this movie to make it more 'lifelike' and 'realistic', but it simply didn't work. The actors clearly don't know what to say and end up repeating lines over and over. The scene where Gazarra is talking to his barman in a telephone booth after his car breaks down is just awful and unnecessary. The only redeeming feature of this movie is the lighting, which I thought was quite good. The rest of the movie (the story, the acting, the dialogue, even the editing) is so bad it is hard to describe. If I had paid to watch this movie, I would have seriously asked for my money back. There was a good reason why it was pulled from cinemas after only 6 days - because it was absolute rubbish.

"The Killing is an innovative thriller trapped inside a bloated self-indulgent work of improvisational theater." I don't have much to add to this comment except to say that there is actually a pretty good story in here. It's well developed and escalates nicely. The protagonist, well played by Ben Gazarra, is truly an interesting (if not very likable) character.Unfortunately, the character and story are weighed down by interminable scenes from the tawdry shows-within-a-show that the main character produces in his strip club. These shows are just bizarre and amateurish. A few glimpses of them would have given us all we need to know about Cosmo Vitelli and his world, but instead we're subjected to these scenes over and over, in stultifying detail. It's just. . . boring.Another reviewer here has complained that Vitelli is wounded in a way that should be fatal, and yet he finishes out the movie as if he doesn't have a care in the world. That reviewer is right. It's just ridiculous and unbelievable.And then there's the complaint that killing the Chinese Bookie of the title--getting past the dogs and the guards--is way too easy for Vitelli. Also a legitimate knock against the movie.No one has mentioned that there's also some pretty bad cinematography on display here--scenes in which the camera follows so poorly during closeups that actors' eyes drift out of the frame.There's an interesting movie in here, but it's so amateurish and self-indulgent in places that that movie is suffocated.

This time I watched "the killing of a Chinese bookie".It is a neo noir film, about a man (Cosmo) who is forced to terms with himself as a man.A strip club owner who thinks he's got the world by the balls, makes a fiesta when he pays off a gambling debt ending with a bigger one. When his creditors lose their patience waiting for him to pay them, they force him to do a job, but he ends up trapped.At first I liked how the film was going, low light, quick scenes, I expected something great to come.Unfortunately, that didn't happen as its interesting mood gave its place to an awful directory, useless scenes and plot holes.First of all, all those shaky scenes made me dizzy. Many scenes had these close-ups on people's faces and blurry image which made the movie difficult to follow and to watch. It was like an amateur film. Sometime in the club, each scene looked like an ending to me, with all the music and stuff.An other major mistake is that there was no character development. All the characters were just so flat. No story behind Cosmo's gambling addiction, or his affair with his girls.At last, there were many scenes that just to justify the almost 2 hours long film (fortunately I watched the shorter version). I mean, there was absolutely no reason showing those long scenes of the girls' performance in the club.A major plot hole was the simplicity with which Cosmo went into the "Chinaman's" house, with all his dogs and bodyguards, killed him and a couple of them and left on his feet.The ending was kinda terrible too, with another long scene of the girls in the club performing and suddenly it focuses on the man of the show who walks away, like the audience cares about him.To conclude, the plot had potentials, but the bad directory and screenplay ruined it. Also, the acting was kinda good! That's why I give it a 3/10...

It may sound unusual to suggest that a quite fleshy movie about a wiseacre strip club owner is about family values, but I think that in this portrait-movie, the self-worth of Cosmo Vittelli is largely founded on his status as a provider for his girls. He's somewhat of a softie for his family of performers, as a young lady of 5"2 highlights when she mentions that no-one else would have taken her in being that short. His foisting of Dom Perignon champagne on one of the girls, who has no idea of the appreciation that she is required to display, demonstrates this sense of needy machismo. Cosmo can't exist outside of this role. He has a perverse attachment to the shows that he scripts and choreographs, which are in their own way quite poignant and strangely well made their smuttiness notwithstanding. The star of the show, Mr Sophistication, is an odd cod who acts as an ironic honey for all the lady bees and manages to somehow dignify what is being seen, as well as lend the Crazy Horse club a pathetic sheen.One of the strengths of cinema, the theatre of the face, has been manifestly apparent since the Maria Falconetti close-up-athon that is The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). There's ample use of it in this movie as well. In the first scene where Cosmo appears, the camera follows only his face as he converses with a gentleman who is just out of shot. The hardest part of acting can be in the response to the lines of another rather than in the deliverance of your own, here Gazzara (Cosmo) responds brilliantly, and his character's persona is established almost immediately.The ostensible plot of the movie, which concerns the titular assassination is almost superfluous, although it adds an extra lemon twist of the bizarre to what is often a lurid Warholian vodka martini of a movie.Definitely one for frequent rewatches.