While people die violently in The Killing, the title comes from the thought of a financial killing. This film is a choreographed chess match - Kubrick had a lifelong passion for chess - with human pieces, where the gambit is a racetrack heist of two million dollars.
The heist is brilliantly conceived. Johnny Clay, recently paroled, must have thought of nothing else in prison except this heist. The precision with which this scheme comes together is exquisite and absolutely flawless. There is one minor loose end during the heist itself when Marvin Unger shows up at the track drunk, contrary to instructions, but this is a red herring.
The heist is brilliantly executed. It goes literally like clockwork, and that is the best, maybe the only, metaphor to describe it. It reminded me of a road rally where drivers had to be in certain positions at certain times. Clay recruits accomplices on the inside, track employees, who must play small, but critical parts, for the heist to work. Everyone does his job beautifully, the heist comes off with hardly a hitch. One accomplice is killed by police, but no one else - conspirator or bystander - gets hurt, and Clay gets away clean. No military operation was ever planned so minutely or executed so precisely.