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This is a movie that I did not personally like, but I know for a fact that there are certain people that this movie was made for.

This is extremely dialogue heavy and I can only like excessive dialogue to a point. I also felt like the dialogue was just words instead of things I can think about. I felt like the words were just going in one ear and out the other.

There are also so many characters in such a short time that I had to rewatch the earlier scenes to actually grasp the whole plot. As for the plot, it seemed very poorly paced.

Everything aside, the great scenes were great. I love the car drive conversation before the robbery and I think that the ending was enjoyable.

I think that my favorite part of this movie were the actors and their characters. Everyone played a different character and I felt like the characters worked well with each other. I especially liked seeing James Gandolfini and Ben Mendelsohn in this movie.

The last thing is that the sound design in this movie is very unique and hit-or-miss. I personally found it an interesting change, but it could definitely be irritating for some.

Overall, you should give this movie a try because on the off chance that this is your cup of tea, you'll love it.

Watching Killing Them Softly put me in mind of the great crime caper film of the Seventies, Charley Varrick. That's the one where Walter Matthau and some accomplices pull off a bank heist in a small out of the way bank in an obscure New Mexico town. Only the bank is a place where syndicate money is held and laundered. Joe Don Baker is the hit-man sent after them and he loves his work. Fortunately at least for Walter Matthau he's smart enough to outwit Baker. Killing Them Softly has no Matthau among the targets as the tale is told from hit-man's point of view.

The hit-man or at least one of them is Brad Pitt and he gets no pleasure in his work, it's a business like any other. He wants to be well compensated for his services. In fact he wants to Kill Them Softly which to him means taking them out with a rifle with scope because he doesn't want to hear their pleadings. Or by surprise in one case where everyone knows its coming, but the victim.

Two real criminal losers Ben Mendelsohn and Scoot McNairy are hired by Vincent Curatola to rob an illegal gambling establishment run by Ray Liotta. With Liotta you can see a bit of his Henry Hill from Goodfellas, with Hill running just this kind of place as he headed into middle age in the mob.

The reason for this target is that several years earlier Liotta ripped his own card game off, but eventually was forgiven when the gambling started booming again. Curatola is sure the mob will look right at Liotta again. Not that they don't look at Liotta again, but they're smarter than that. They always are.

Once the caper goes down in comes Pitt, but also with a few competitors, James Gandolfini being one. That's where Pitt starts negotiating his deal.

Brad Pitt gives a good performance here, but for me the real stars are McNairy and Mendelsohn. You will rarely losers with a capital "L" portrayed on the screen as they are with these two. In a way they ought to be put out of their misery for their own good. Still you feel sorry for them somewhat.

Interesting mob movie with some deep black comic overtones.

Andrew Dominik's third feature is an interesting, often entertaining but also frustrating crime thriller which reunites the Australian film-maker with Jesse James star Brad Pitt. The film features severe brutality and wonderful performances but the elements that should have stayed in the subtext are beaten into the audience as much as much the hapless characters.

Adapted from George V. Higgins' novel and set in New Orleans against the back drop of the Wall Street Banking Crisis and the 2008 Presidential election, Killing them Softly is a crime thriller with a socio-economic message not so much on its sleeve but carved on its forehead. Scoot McNairy (Monsters) and Ben Mendelsohn (last seen in The Dark Knight Rises) play two naïve crooks who agree to rob a Mob-protected high stakes poker game for a local small time gangster named the Squirrel (The Sopranos' Vincent Curatola). The bosses suspect Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), the game's manager who is more guilty for his negligence than his complicity. Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), an efficient and clinical hit man is brought in by a mysterious lawyer (the ever great Richard Jenkins) - with connections to an unidentified network of authorities inside and out of the underworld - to clean up the entire mess.

Dominik seems to relish in deconstructing audiences perceptions of gangster-genre veterans such as James Gandolfini, Curatola, and Liotta. The three are somewhat weak characters who are simply small fish in a very big and dangerous pond. Liotta particularly is a quivering, cowering tragic character – completely removed from the swagger he exemplified in Goodfellas. Gandolfini too retains some of his magnetic threatening persona but he is a hit man with a broken heart and a broke n liver from his alcoholism and penchant for prostitutes. The rest of the supporting cast is superb with Sam Shephard, Richard Jenkins and Slaine (seen in Ben Affleck's The Town and Gone Baby Gone) all delivering strong but all-to-brief contributions to the film. Pitt is maintaining his consistency with another confident and compelling performance. He imbues Cogan with empathy – exemplified by his tact of assassinating his targets "softly" – yet he is direct and unyielding in his objectives. His speech at the climax of the movie set against Barack Obama's election victory speech is electrifying and among Pitt's finest work.

Killing them Softly is a violent film. The beatings are rough and severe and you feel every punch – every broken tooth, every crack in the jaw, every smashed nose. The gunshots are loud and frightening. The gangster life is in no way romantic or glamorous. It's a kill or be killed environment and those who hesitate to be ruthless and driven in their mission are victims. It's a Darwinian environment where "hope" and "change" are just words printed on dilapidated billboards.

The plot of the film is very simple but Dominik rather slows down the action and focus on the characters. It's almost surprising the film ends when it does as one does not know what to expect or where the story is heading. There is an uncertainty in the pacing of the film that is quite apparent. Furthermore, rumours that Dominik's original cut was 2 and half hours (the finished film is a brisk 97 minutes) give weight to the belief that Dominik had much more ambitious plans. It's easy to speculate about the reasons for such a massive cut to footage (studio pressure perhaps) but Dominik seems to mistrust his audience to "get" the sub textual themes and motifs. It's painfully apparent that the heist and subsequent fallout is an allegory for the Economic Crisis and the cutthroat crime underworld is not dissimilar to corporate America. Dominik doesn't believe in understated or subtlety but Killing them Softly is an entertaining ride nonetheless. One cannot help ponder whether this film was destined for something much, much more.

This is a film that looks outstanding. It has that feel of the best seventies cinema. The acting similarly is outstanding but still, a few things stop it from being the stone cold classic it could have been.

The cracks started to show when Cogan(Pitt) has his first talk with Mickey(Gandolfini). It's the latest in a long series of head to heads that play out more like acting master-classes than anything relating to the film. That scene effectively breaks the spell and reminds us that we are watching "good quality acting" combined with "a good script".

The film seems to go off the rails after this. Any charm or involvement is soon stopped by another showy scene from the director who seems more concerned with showing off his film making skills than actually making a good film.

The final thing that jars is Brad Pitt. He had the same effect on Fight Club. Pitt is too big a star for a film like this. He simply doesn't convince as the cynical cold blooded killer. Why would such a man spend that much time on his physical appearance for instance?. A more earthy, hard boiled actor could have made the character believable.

Not a bad film but overbearingly condescending at the finale (which I won't spoil here). The film that went before doesn't earn that pay off and its impact isn't felt on the screen. Which makes the end deeply unsatisfying.

Shame really as with more editing and less egos involved, this could have been so much better.

I really enjoyed this little gem. Dark humour at its best. Set in a gritty declining USA. Mobsters and hitmen doing business to make ends meet. The entire cast is terrific. Low key, understated and perfect.

A really enjoyable little gem!