mitch2209 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.

David Jones "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.

LeonLouisRicci The real world can be at times a bland and ugly place. The world of reality cinema is by nature a mirror image without embellishment. The Director's style is an in your face, life is what it is, and that is as much entertainment you are going to get, so deal with it.So we have a bland and ugly film. Minus any attempt at gloss, except maybe on the lips of the strip-club girls, that the anti hero so respects and loves. This film tries so hard to be Avant Garde that it is painful and embarrassing. The shaky camera, it must be said, is a precursor of things to come with the advent of video, although this is probably an unintentional insight, and only a way of stating, life has no tripods. But the unfinished scenes, the over extended scenes, the off camera action and results of action, the pans that end up nowhere, and the mumbled dialog are too pretentious and do the opposite of the "reality" the Director had in mind. In fact, it only clearly demonstrate that a movie is being made and by a filmmaker that looks like he has yet to enter the first semester of film school.This movie is self-indulgent to the point of narcissism yet it means to be free spirited with an ever penetrating, soul searching gaze outward, irritating when it means to be comforting, and an exercise in the most deceitful of behavior, using the entertainment business, not to entertain but to offend our sensibilities, not with art, but with artlessness. We are like the saps that paid money for the most not sexy, strip club shows ever. It's a calculated rip-off, it is not clever it is a semi-talented movie makers masquerade.

bob_meg 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.