Great Movie But I've 4 questions...

All right. I'll try to explain it. I HAVEN'T found any proof for what I'm saying but I think these will make reasonable answers.

1. And why do it have to be one of the heros? Like in books- often you don't know who the narrator is. He's just telling the story.

2. Well...it happened to hit the ground and as I remember there was a problem with locking it.

3. That's what I liked the most. Well...I have NO idea. But it reminded me (well...the WHOLE movie reminded me) Reservoir Dogs. Actually, Tarantino was inspired by The Killing. In RD one shot comes from nowhere (well...it is a story why it's that way cause in the beginning it wasn't intented to be like that but nevermind). It is NOT important who killed who but the fact everyone got killed ;>

4. Oh, there WAS a policemen down there ;> . Seriously, I remember the moment someone said something like "and no one noticed the bag falling out of the window". I guess there were a few cops nearby.
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When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk

In regards to the suitcase problem, Reservoir Dog is right. Johnny is shown trying to lock it with the set of keys to no avail, and at the very end of that scene you seem him toss them away.

But yeah, with the shootout I did think it was a little weird. George comes out and fires a shot or two at Val, and Val is only seen firing one round from his shotgun, but it killed his accomplice as well as all three of the other guys (and George eventually). I think due to the wounds shown (the holes in George and Mike's faces), it was supposed to be a buckshot spread that hit everybody, but killing five people with one shot is a real stretch at best.

THe narrator was Art Gilmore who also did the TV series Highway Patrol. He was the best. I think he added to the drama of the film.

When Clay pulls up outside the building where the shootout just took place, George leaves the building and crosses the road to get in his car before going home to shoot his wife. But the guy on screen leaving the building doesn't look anything like George. I was thinking, who the hell's that?

- Who was the narrator? It seems he was not any of the players involved.

I don't think the narrator was meant to be a person but a third person omniscient narrator. We find a narrator in at least half of Kubrick's films, sometimes as first person voice-over (The Killer's Kiss, Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket) or third person omniscient narration (The Killing, Dr. Strangelove, Barry Lyndon). The Killing was the first attempt by Kubrick to create a God-like detachment, as if we were watching lab rats in a maze. Needless to say, Kubrick achieved this with far greater subtlety in later films. What the narrator in The Killing does achieve is creating a detached, documentary news-reel type of feeling. The narrator is unemotional and show no emotion or concern the characters: "Nicky was dead at 4:24", for example.

- It was shown very clearly that the suitcase had a big lock on it. How could this suitcase get opened so easily with interaction of such a small dog? I know this way the ending would be more dramatic and heartbreaking but the question need to be answered in a logical manner.

I don't know why Johnny bought such a dodgy second hand case with a faulty lock. Perhaps he felt it would be more inconspicuous than a brand new case. Johnny evidently didn't have the foresight to check the lock beforehand, especially since he was assuming it would be a carry-on. Was it a smart thing to do? Maybe not, but then Johnny wasn't as smart as he thought he was. Would the case have popped open the way it did in the film even before it hit the ground, and wouldn't Johnny have realized that possibility? I don't know, but this film asks us to accept that it did and he didn't, and so we are either willing to play along or not as we choose.

- Toward the end, when Goerge got in the room and opened fire to Val (his wife's boyfriend) and Val's accomplice, all people in the room got killed (including the 4 people involved in the robbery). It was not clear who killed who! Any idea?

I'm not an expert on shotgun ordnance, so I'll tread cautiously here. What I can say is that George fired his gun twice, so that would account for Val and his accomplice being dead. As for the rest of the gang, assuming that at least one other shotgun blast was discharged by Val's accomplice, then maybe, just maybe, it was within the realm of possibility if you squint your eyes just sright. This is another thing the viewer can either choose to play along with, or not, as they please.

- When Johnny drops such a big bag of money down the window, how come there was no police or security down there? Such a place is a good robbery target. One should expect somewhat tighter security. Do you not think so?

I don't know about that one. I'm not an expert on racetrack security in the mid 50's. Maybe it wasn't realistic, but then again, maybe it was. I'll take a pass on that one.


I found this article intersting...you might like to take a look at it...

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1956-the-killing-kubrick-s-cloc kwork

- It was shown very clearly that the suitcase had a big lock on it. How could this suitcase get opened so easily with interaction of such a small dog?

Johnny is clearly shown struggling with the lock in an earlier scene. He does not manage to get the suitcase to close properly. As stated by the narrator, he bought the suitcase because it was the largest he could find in the store (and hence the only suitcase that would accommodate all of that cash). He perhaps did not stop to check if the lock was secure in his haste. You could argue that Johnny should've taken more time and calmly gone off to buy a more secure suitcase somewhere else. But by this point, he had begun to panic. He knows that something has gone very wrong and that he needs to clear out, fast.

Toward the end, when Goerge got in the room and opened fire to Val (his wife's boyfriend) and Val's accomplice, all people in the room got killed (including the 4 people involved in the robbery). It was not clear who killed who! Any idea?

I don't think the question is terribly important. The shoot-out is not even depicted on screen (the camera pans away). The only information we get is an unspecified number of shots in quick succession and then: the dead bodies. It's a quick narrative edit and the plot races away again. We don't need to know the precise details to understand the story. We just need to know that there was a stand-off in which everybody got shot and killed.

When Johnny drops such a big bag of money down the window, how come there was no police or security down there? Such a place is a good robbery target. One should expect somewhat tighter security. Do you not think so?

Not really. Why would anybody be expecting a bag of money to be thrown out of the window? Besides, there was a cop there. The one that was bought off to collect the money as part of the heist. Perhaps being stationed outside of the window was part of his regular beat. Perhaps this is why this particular cop was chosen to participate in the heist?

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When Johnny drops such a big bag of money down the window, how come there was no police or security down there? Such a place is a good robbery target. One should expect somewhat tighter security. Do you not think so?


Most of the people were probably rubbernecking at the dead horse on the racetrack and the dead guy in the parking lot on the other side of the track.

The suitcase threw me at first too but then I thought about it. The question is: why would Johnny (such a smart crook who seamlessly planned this whole thing) leave it up to a cheap suitcase to decide the fate of his 2 million?

But, remember, Johnny originally goes to the meet the others in the apartment to divide up the money. But when he arrives, he finds George stumbling out from an apparent shot-out. He knows he has a flight waiting for him so he has to hurry but now he has a lot more cash to deal with then the what he initially thought he'd have, so he quickly buys the largest suitcase he can find and stuffs all the money in it. Clearly it's packed full and he even has some problems locking it. That's how the later problem of the dog on the runway occurs.

If the shootout hadn't have happened, he would have had 1/5 the amount of money to deal with and likely could have fit it all in a small backpack but the suitcase had to make due.