Review of Killing Them Softly (2012) by Gavin D — 03 Jul 2013

I'm a big fan of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and I'm a fan of most, if not all the people involved with the making of this movie. I liked nearly everything about it; the music, the acting, the direction, the writing, the story, I liked all of it... except for one thing. What exactly are we supposed to do with the message handed to us here? Because that's all it is, a message. Jackie mentions in two scenes how the country and the mob have depreciated due to their focus on becoming a community, but the topic isn't actually discussed, isn't really deliberated on. It's like in those horror movies where a character is given some message warning them about how they will die. The kind that only say one word, a whole sentence if you're lucky. "Stairs." "Watch out for stairs." The character ends up dying anyway. Of course they did. How were they supposed to know that by "watch out for stairs", they should be wary of the person stalking them for 6th months? Too little information is given here for me to do anything with the message. Maybe the country is in ruins, I don't think so. I fail to see validity of "evidence" shown here, not to mention on Fox News. You can hand me those "stairs" warnings all you want to, but I live in a one story house.

Politics aside, Killing Them Softly is a well made, well acted movie, and even though I gritted my teeth a couple times, I enjoyed it very much.