"The Killing really pulls in all of the sicko elements of noir that master novelist Jim Thompson specialized in. It's basically cruelty heaped upon cruelty; nobody can get it right so nobody gets anything. End of moral, end of story. (Sterling) Hayden is an ex-con named Johnny Clay who plans a surefire robbery of a racetrack. He hires Timothy Carey to shoot a horse during a race in order to cause confusion and divert people's attention from the robbery...The rest of the guys are typical grifters, dummies out for an easy buck who can't get out of their own way...Kubrick uses repeated flashbacks to tell the story, an elliptical style calculated to make the viewer pay attention and build the narrative to a crescendo that ultimately breaks in a wave. It works perfectly, and each face is right for the part. Everyone looks so worried and concerned throughout that their features are marred, twisted, bent, screwed up in the physical as well as psychological sense. Robbing and killing can do that to people..." --Barry Gifford