Killing Zoe is a 1994 movie that was written and directed by Roger Avary The fil...

Killing Zoe is a 1994 movie that was written & directed by Roger Avary. The film centers around a safe cracker named Zed who returns to France to aid an old friend in pulling off a doomed bank heist. Killing Zoe is regarded as a respected cult favorite & has been labeled by Roger Ebert as "Generation X's first bank caper movie."Plot The film centers on Zed (Eric Stoltz), a professional safe-cracker, who comes to Paris to help a childhood friend, Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade), with a bank heist. In the cab on the way to his hotel room, the cabbie sets him up with a call girl. He arrives at his hotel room & is greeted by call girl, Zoe (Julie Delpy). After having sex, they talk & begin to connect. They are soon interrupted when Eric barges in & kicks Zoe out of the room. Eric takes Zed back to his place where Zed meets Eric's friends. Eric explains his plans: the following day is Bastille Day & virtually everything is closed except for the bank they plan to rob, which is a holding bank & thus is open even on holidays. Zed shakes off his jetlag & his rest time to spend the night partying with Eric & his friends in the seedy side of Paris, which Eric refers to as 'the Real Paris'. During the binging, Eric confides to Zed that he has AIDS. The next day, Zed is awakened by Eric as they prepare to enter the bank. The team dons Carnival masks to hide their faces before bursting into the bank. They quickly kill those who do not cooperate as they escort Zed (who has not witnessed the killings) to the safe so he can get to work. Their plans soon start unraveling as the police show up & they're faced with the possibility of going to jail for life o. having to shoot their way out. Tensions get even higher when Zed recognizes Zoe (who coincidentally works at the bank) & attempts to protect her, to the fury of Eric. As desperation runs high, a vicious gunfight between the cops, Eric, & the rest of the gang breaks out -- with Zed caught 'innocently' in the middle. The men can only celebrate a pyrrhic victory as Zed breaks into the vault & finds millions in gold bars -- only to have no way of getting out alive with their fortune. As Eric's men are killed by the police as they rush the bank, Zed & Eric begin to fight between each other. The police shoot Eric to death. He falls on Zed, splattering heavy amounts of blood on him in the process (possibly exposing Zed to his AIDS infected blood). Injured, Zed is quickly led away by Zoe, who covers for him, stating he is a bank customer. They drive away in her car, where Zoe promises Zed that when he gets well she'll show him the 'real' Paris. Production Killing Zoe was director Roger Avary's feature directorial debut. Producer Lawrence Bender had scouted a bank location in Los Angeles as a possible filming location for Reservoir Dogs. Knowing he could attain the location for very little, & being a savvy producer, Bender called all the screenwriters he knew & asked if they had any screenplays that took place in a bank. Avary told him he had one, even though he didn't, & proceeded to quickly write one in a reported week & a half. Avary stated he wanted to make "an art-house film for both the coffeehouse crowd & the exploitation crowd." The movie, despite taking place in Paris, was filmed almost entirely in Los Angeles, California. Only the opening credit roll was filmed in France. In an interview contained on the DVD, director Roger Avary explains how he wanted to make a movie about how nihilistic he felt his generation was, & said that watching Eric Stoltz in the film was like seeing his evil twin come into creation. He wrote the script specifically for Eric Stoltz. Both he & Stoltz admitted they had a fantasy to rob a bank (though Stoltz qualified this with ‘& not go to jail’!) & making this movie was as close as they would get. Avary stated that, as a first time director, it was a dream to work with world class actors as talented as Jean-Hugues Anglade, Eric Stoltz, & Julie Delpy. Killing Zoe is notable as the first feature film to use the newly invented Otto Nemitz Swing & Tilt lenses, which were used during the heroin sequences for perspective distortion instead of their original purpose of perspective correction. Cast - Eric Stoltz ... Zed - Julie Delpy ... Zoe - Jean-Hugues Anglade ... Eric - Tai Thai ... François - Bruce Ramsay ... Ricardo - Kario Salem ... Jean - Salvator Xuereb ... Claude - Gary Kemp ... Oliver - Cecilia Peck ... Martina - David Richard Thompson Burnt Vault Guard