Title: Killing Them Softly
Grade: C
Writer/Director: Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)
Starring: Brad Pitt (Inglourious Basterds)
Scoot McNairy (Argo)
Ben Mendelsohn (The Dark Knight Rises)
James Gandolfini (The Sopranos)
Ray Liotta (Goodfellas)
Critic: Cameron Flatt
Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino is a personal favorite of mine due to his uniquely strange characters, pointless (yet entertaining) dialogue, and over the top action scenes. His best works include Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds, and Reservoir Dogs.
Tarantino is not the director of Killing Them Softly and, no, I am not bringing him up simply to spew out my fan boy love for him. His directing style is relevant due to the fact that this film is quite blatantly trying to mimic his signature style of filming. And while it does have a decent hold on the pointless dialogue scenes, Andrew Dominik (the film’s director) forgets one vital aspect to Tarantino’s formula; you have to break up the dialogue with some hard hitting fight scenes.
I am getting ahead of myself. Killing is about two low level criminals, Frankie and Russell (McNairy and Mendelsohn), who are recruited to knock over, aka rob, a poker game. The game consists of local mob bosses playing with mob money. Normally no one would even consider this job, but they have a rather clever plan. Years prior, a man known as Markie (Liotta) was running the poker game and decided to hire two men of his own to rob it while he was in attendance. They got away and the local criminal economy crashed due to the large sum of money that was lost. A few years later, when it no longer mattered, Markie confessed to the robbery and everyone just laughed it off.
Flash forward to the present, Frankie and Russell have decided to rob a game and allow the mob bosses to simply assume that Markie did it again. After Markie receives a severe beating to force a confession out of him, a hit man named Jackie (Pitt) is hired to find out who really pulled off the job. He discovers that Russell had drunkenly boasted about the entire heist, thus leading Jackie right to the guilty party’s door step. The only problem is that Frankie and Russell’s boss knows Jackie so there is no way he would be able to get close enough without the boss knowing something is up and running.
This is when they bring in “New York” Mickey (Gandolfini) to handle the boss. A conversation with Mickey reveals that he is no longer the sharp-minded assassin that he once was. Jackie also comes to the conclusion that the mob is now more of corporation than the stone cold criminal business now of the past.
Through context, you can figure out that the movie takes place in about 2007 or 2008 due to Obama and McCain campaign ads. We constantly see speeches by Obama as well as President Bush that are, I believe, trying to set up the movie to be a metaphor for the current state of our country.
The symbols in this metaphor include the once great men that have fallen from their pedestal (Mickey), the economy drastically declining (the criminal economy crashing due the robbery), and business run by corporations (the new mob). Although this really doesn’t fit into the movie all that well, Jackie’s final dialogue about this is a cold slap of reality to the viewer and the first glimpse into the mind of the emotionless character that Pitt is portraying. It is probably one of my personal favorites as far as final scenes go.
The movie is not all political metaphors though. The filming style is absolutely astounding including skilled cinematography and a clever use of camera angles. One scene, in which Markie is beaten, is shot at night in the rain. It is slightly sped up to convey the unpleasant nature of the scene and, while it would have been better for a straight-up fight scene, is effective in doing so. The best scene of the movie is when Jackie assassinates a character again in the rain and at night, but in slow motion. This is a scene that cannot merely be described, but needs to be experienced in order to benefit from its full impact.
The movie flaws do over shadow the excellent filming style, though. The writing for the long spouts of pointless dialogue is not nearly good enough to justify the scenes like in Tarantino’s movies. The dialogue does feel organic, but just simply isn’t interesting. And just about nothing happens in the film causing it to be rather boring. And while I do like Pitt’s performance, nothing he does makes us care about him at all. The same goes for every other character.
Overall, a few good aspects are not able to save this otherwise pointless film that has been done before in better ways. Other than the slow motion scene and the ending, I would recommend simply seeing the trailer because it is one of the best of the year and uses a Johnny Cash song which gives it lots of extra credit points.
Something unique about that Cash song “When the Man Comes Around,” is that it is actually used in the movie. This is pretty rare nowadays when popular songs are simply slapped on to trailers to make them seem intriguing.
This review was originally published on kHQtoday.com.
Flattout Studios 