Killing Them Softly

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.

There is more wordplay than gun-play here and it is a Neo-Noir, hard-boiled, unfettered attempt at gritty realism. Some of the extended dialog scenes are pretty good but not quite excellent. There is some rambling and pointless exchanges with little pay-off.

But there are some serious, reality sound bites that give us the same thing. There is that continuous backdrop of Political rambling rhetoric that mirrors the Character's innate ability to speak much and say little.

This is an against the grain try at alternative, smart Cinema with just enough stylized graphic violence to make it obvious that this has Artistic commentary and not Documentary style Cinema Verite on its mind. Overall it is a well done and interesting kind of side-step from the usual whiz-bang editing and shaky Camera stuff that has become so common.

This is slow, bordering at times on tedious, but never a bore. It is well crafted but does not quite reach that level of great Prose transferred to great Film. But it is a good try at a very difficult, rarely achieved process that creates the best of this kind of thing.

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!

This movie was done in a style that was quite unique from your standard issue shoot 'em up or Scorsese gangster movie in a number of ways I found refreshing. It slowed down the pace of dialogue scenes to a relatable and believable level, made the violence far more realistic, and didn't overdo the music. Those who can't handle too much, or too realistic of violence won't like this movie.

Some might feel the dialogue makes the movie drag just a bit, but if you like realistic filmmaking, they've made it feel as if you're sitting in on actual conversations. The scenes and cuts are long but are livened up with the fairly constant scummy-ness of the characters. James Gandolfini seemed to prattle on a little too much but I suppose that was the point.

The violence can be summed up as unsentimental; much of it can be defined by the difficult achievement of not falling into played out Hollywood clichés. There are no heros in this movie as the director doesn't use cheap tricks, like voiceovers, disproportionate screen time, or happy music to convince you that one criminal is worth rooting for over the others. There is no glorification or demonization of violence, as it is depicted without the influence of music, and the audience can decide for themselves about what is being shown. There are no Schwartzenegger-style shoot outs, as the violence is usually sudden but brutal and loud. Every gunshot is closer to being as loud as real life, so you get a little jolt with every shot like being at a gun range.

The use of music is also played down and important in making both the violence and dialogue distinct. There is some music which gives the movie some energy, but overall far less than the average Hollywood film. This adds an element of suspense as the music doesn't give away what is about to happen in every scene (like a movie with ominous music when something bad is about to happen, etc.). The lack of music also allows the audience a semblance of neutrality in what they are observing; characters are allowed to be likable without being good.

This is the sort of movie you could expect if the hero was removed and you only had the villains and thugs left over--it is far less boring.

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.