Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Cortechba Overrated

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

elvircorhodzic Incredibly an exciting beginning of a movie. The murderers who kill without explanation and victim calmly awaits death. THE KILLERS is out of sync movie, which does not affect much on a very good story and a solid noir atmosphere. Flashbacks are chronologically nonlinear, are manifold, but are quite clear. Most attract attention, because the reconstruction of the victim's life. Looking at the other side, they are only an attempt to illuminate the case in which the robbed factory. The heart of the story is certainly not an insurance investigator. He is only an intermediary.The story is quite complicated and tense. Therefore, conclusions can be multiple. Why man quietly waiting for its own liquidation? For love or fraud. The victim of femme fatale or just a criminal who fell in love with the wrong woman.One of the protagonists patiently solve the mystery. He waits until all the attributes are not in his hands. Burt Lancaster as Pete Lund/Ole "Swede" Andreson is handsome and muscular actor who in all solid pace. For the first important role quite decent. Although I think it director spared some embarrassment. Several times he was close. Ava Gardner as Kitty Collins was prickly as a femme fatale. The lady who cut the flow of the story. Although I was fascinated by her beauty, I have not regretted the fate of her character at the end of the film. Edmond O'Brien as Jim Reardon is cunning, cold and relentless investigator in the style of a real detective. On one side is a bad copy of the Bogart, on the other hand the result of the popularity of such characters in film noir.The film has a slow tempo with a lot of uncertainty and tension. The sharp dialogues, gloomy atmosphere and fatalistic tone determined work on which the movie is based.

moonspinner55 After out of town killers come into a small community to kill a garage mechanic/former boxer nicknamed "the Swede", an insurance investigator pieces together the crime--and the victim's reluctance to run when warned of his impending death. Gripping film noir, expanded from Ernest Hemingway's short story, is often misrepresented as the first of its kind when the genre (and these stylized characters) had been kicking around cinema for at least 10 years. Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner turn in star-making performances, though the seasoned character actors in the lesser roles are often just as good or better. Screenplay credited to Anthony Veiller, however both John Huston and Richard Brooks worked extensively on it. The melodramatic music by Miklós Rózsa and the striking cinematography by Woody Bredell both compliment the film tremendously. Remade in 1964 with Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson, in what was meant as a TV feature but instead was released to theaters. **1/2 from ****

Tweekums In the opening scene two threatening men enter a diner in Brentwood New Jersey and start inform the owner that they intend to kill 'The Swede' when he comes for his dinner. When it becomes apparent that he isn't coming they head off to where he is living. One of the diner customers runs ahead to warn him but he has no intention of running or fighting back and is gunned down in his bed minutes later! The local police aren't too interested but insurance man Jim Reardon is curious and starts asking questions that lead us to discover why The Swede was murdered and who sent the two killers.We learn that he was a boxer who had to quit when he broke his right hand. His life goes wrong when he meets femme fatale Kitty Collins; he immediately falls for her and even does time in prison to protect her. Once out he gets involved with a robbery and it looks as if he double crossed his associates and took the $250,000 stolen… a certain motive for murder; Reardon isn't so sure though and continues digging.This film gripped me from the start; the two killers' behaviour in the diner is genuinely threatening; there is a real sense of menace and when they kill The Swede it is a real shock… after all he is played by Burt Lancaster who gets top billing! Of course that isn't the last we see of him as much of the story is told in flashback. Lancaster does a solid enough job as The Swede but the real star of the show is Edmond O'Brien who plays Reardon; the character who's investigation drives the story. Ava Gardner is good as Kitty Collins although her role isn't as large as one might expect. The way the story unfolds keeps things interesting even if some of the links are a bit far-fetched… at one point Reardon listens to a delirious dying man who just happens to be talking about the robbery several years previously. Still that is a small quibble about what is otherwise a great film noir.

SnoopyStyle Hit men Max and Al come to Brentwood, New Jersey and kill Ole "the Swede" Andreson (Burt Lancaster). Life insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O'Brien) tracks down the beneficiary of the policy. He is helped by the Swede's friend police Lieutenant Sam Lubinsky (Sam Levene). The Swede was a washed up boxer who got mixed up with some bad people and Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner).Killing off Burt Lancaster right at the start takes away some of the tension. The movie stalls a little bit after a really compelling start. It would have been much better to have him live and he could hunt down for those responsible. Watching the flashbacks in this movie, the fact that he's already dead is always at the back of my mind. I love the start but the structure isn't as compelling.