The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

Strip club owner Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara) has a gambling problem and owes $23,000 to a low-level gangster, money that he doesn't have. So Cosmo's debtor forces him to murder a bookie to clear his accounts, not realizing he's being set up to take the fall for rubbing out a rival mob boss. When he succeeds at the murder and surprisingly (if barely) survives, Cosmo becomes a man hunted by two sets of thugs eager to silence him. Seymour Cassel costars in this classic of independent filmmaking.