Review of Killing Them Softly (2012) by Jonathan K — 05 Nov 2015

To be constantly questioning a film for its style, dialogue and structure, days after you have finished watching it is no common task, it says vast amounts about any piece of cinema that consistently challenges and sways expectation.

Killing Them Softly is hardly a cinematic masterpiece, in fact its far from it, however the films ability to offer up a gripping story from essentially an entire feature length full of solid dialogue, not to be penned by the likes of Tarantino or O'Russell is actually pretty invigorating and refreshing.

When 3 desperate, down and out men conjure up an insane plot to raid a mobsters card game, never did they expect the events that follow to cause the entire mob's and their lives to change forever.

It's an insanely simple plot, almost too simple and one that can be likened to any early Guy Ritchie film, but its huge performances and direction, manage to steer what could have been a yawn inducing hour and a half into something extremely unique and quite gratifying to watch.

The cast is huge, Brad Pitt, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini, Scoot McNairy and the hypnotizing Ben Mendelsohn, all deliver utterly brilliant performances for the duration of the film. Its these performances that really make Killing Them Softly the unique piece that it is, with such a dialogue heavy script just flowing off the page through the abilities of these wonderful actors, all bringing a staggering weight to what is, essentially, a bare bones plot.

Yes the film is littered with a nice amount of sub plot and the heavily infused political commentary finds its way into just about every scene, but there is a sense that the film has got something decent to say, even if some of these tools become over used by the final act.

The visual work on offer here is also extremely commendable, yes we've seen the tried and tested rough and rugged look, that in reality is extremely polished and expertly crafted, but the visuals here are dank, crisp and pretty haunting throughout, aside from some wildly obvious CGI blood.

There are moments when even the distraught streets of New Orleans look stunning and that's a credit any good DOP should wear with pride. For all its brilliance however, the film never really finds its true self, becoming slightly jarring in some instances.

The weight distribution of characters flies all over the place, that's fine in some cases but here the pacing feels a little uneven, leaving you lost with no one to really route for. As mentioned, Killing Them Softly also features some extremely prominent presidential speeches at any point it has to breathe, these feel like they should have importance and to begin with they do, however it soon becomes forced and slightly annoying to watch, its as if the script writer thinks his material is better than you or that he had something very specific to say, that doesnt fit within the context of the film, but tries to shoe horn it in anyway.

Killing Them Softly is a slow, brooding and ultimately rewarding film, for fans of hardcore, performance driven film, for anyone else however, the beauty of this film will pass them by with no less than a glance in the night.