SnoopyStyle Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara) owns the burlesque club Crazy Horse West in California. Business is a little slow. After paying off his gambling debt, he promptly loses $23k more at a private casino. The boss calls in the debt and forces him to kill a minor Chinese bookie to clean the slate. Only the minor figure turns out to be a major gang leader.There is something hypnotic about John Cassavetes' directing style. Ben Gazzara is charismatic. I watched the 135-minute version. Even the long rambling burlesque shows are fascinating. It's supported by a gangster story that provides the movie with its drive. I do wish that Cassavetes would film the action with more intensity. His style doesn't work as well with the action scenes. Also after the final shootout, I rather have the movie end quicker.

gavin6942 A proud strip club owner (Ben Gazzara) is forced to come to terms with himself as a man, when his gambling addiction gets him in hot water with the mob, who offer him only one alternative.Gazzara has made a career of playing seedy characters. Although he regularly worked with Cassavetes, younger audiences might know him best from "Roadhouse" or "The Big Lebowski". They would not be disappointed by his portrayal here. Cassavetes regulars Al Ruban and Seymour Cassel also appear, though Gena Rowlands is noticeably absent.Cassavetes' best work is widely regarded to be either "Faces" or "A Woman Under the Influence", but a case could be made for this one, as well. His earlier work relied heavily on improvisation, and some might argue they suffered from too much "small talk" adding minutes to the running time. Here the plot is much more linear, much tighter to a script. As Larry Karaszewski has noted, it is much more "high concept" than his earlier work.Phillip Lopate wrote, "The plot's biggest gamble is to make Cosmo, this likable if screwed-up schnook, actually go through with the killing. Is it plausible that someone so seemingly decent would do such a thing?" But, of course, this is the whole point... when you must choose between killing for the mob or being killed by the mob, your actions may no longer be decided by whether you are a "decent" person.The 1978 re-cut of the film is even tighter, removing much of the unnecessary night club footage, which is unusual (considering most director's cuts are longer than the theatrical releases). In some ways, it is a different film, and making comparisons between the two is a review in itself.

George Vakratsas This time I watched "the killing of a Chinese bookie".It is a neo noir film, about a man (Cosmo) who is forced to terms with himself as a man.A strip club owner who thinks he's got the world by the balls, makes a fiesta when he pays off a gambling debt ending with a bigger one. When his creditors lose their patience waiting for him to pay them, they force him to do a job, but he ends up trapped.At first I liked how the film was going, low light, quick scenes, I expected something great to come.Unfortunately, that didn't happen as its interesting mood gave its place to an awful directory, useless scenes and plot holes.First of all, all those shaky scenes made me dizzy. Many scenes had these close-ups on people's faces and blurry image which made the movie difficult to follow and to watch. It was like an amateur film. Sometime in the club, each scene looked like an ending to me, with all the music and stuff.An other major mistake is that there was no character development. All the characters were just so flat. No story behind Cosmo's gambling addiction, or his affair with his girls.At last, there were many scenes that just to justify the almost 2 hours long film (fortunately I watched the shorter version). I mean, there was absolutely no reason showing those long scenes of the girls' performance in the club.A major plot hole was the simplicity with which Cosmo went into the "Chinaman's" house, with all his dogs and bodyguards, killed him and a couple of them and left on his feet.The ending was kinda terrible too, with another long scene of the girls in the club performing and suddenly it focuses on the man of the show who walks away, like the audience cares about him.To conclude, the plot had potentials, but the bad directory and screenplay ruined it. Also, the acting was kinda good! That's why I give it a 3/10...

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.