Fresh
When Cassavetes is really cooking, even the moments that are awkward and forced can become electric.
Jay Cocks, TIME Magazine
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
1976 · 2h 15m · R
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Directed by
John Cassavetes
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The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
Overview
Cosmo Vittelli, the proprietor of a sleazy, low-rent Hollywood cabaret, has a real affection for the women who strip in his peepshows and the staff who keep up his dingy establishment. He also has a major gambling problem that has gotten him in trouble before. When Cosmo loses big-time at an underground casino run by mobster Mort, he isn't able to pay up. Mort then offers Cosmo the chance to pay back his debt by knocking off a pesky, Mafia-protected bookie.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
81%
Tomatometer
Fresh
John Cassavetes, who made much of his money performing in action films, put that experience to work as the director of this hard, brooding crime drama
Richard Brody, New Yorker
Rotten
There's no cinematography credit, which suggests Cassavetes either added that hat to his writer-director wardrobe, or the real culprit left town ahead of the posse.
Variety Staff, Variety
Fresh
It's rather like a shaggy dog story operating inside a chase movie. Chinese Bookie is the more insouciant, involuted and unfathomable of the two; the curdled charm of Gazzara's lopsided grin has never been more to the point.
Melissa Anderson, Time Out
Rotten
Watching the film is like listening to someone use a lot of impressive words, the meanings of which are just wrong enough to keep you in a state of total confusion, but occasionally right enough to hold your attention. What is he trying to say?
Vincent Canby, New York Times
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