Review of Killing Them Softly (2012) by Stevepulaski — 25 Jan 2013

Killing Them Softly assembles a first-rate cast and is consistently potent in its style, but its writing and direction is where it encounters its gravest problems. We have the likes of Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, and Scoot McNairy, along with director Andrew Dominik of The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, which leads one to believe that we have a strong and viable mob drama on our hands. Unfortunately, we have a rather tedious, disappointing excursion awaiting us as we see that the product is combined of outdated mobster morals and lukewarm potboiler drama between its morosely captured characters.

We open the movie with mobster Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) attempting to convince his boss to hire a lowlife junkie named Frankie (Scoot McNairy) to pull off an operation involving the holdup of an illegal poker game. With much hesitation, the boss allows Russell and Frankie to pull off the holdup, and the film follows up with a long, dry robbery which is held in a concise building where a number of men in suits have gathered to exchange words, drinks, and hands, all run by crime boss Markie (Ray Liotta). Not long ago, Markie silently staged to have his own poker game robbed and kept quiet about it for a period of time, until openly releasing his involvement over a night of drinks. The gang allowed him one pass, but the next robbery, the one the film opens with, will be counted as Markie's fault and his involvement will be assumed from the get-go.

After this robbery, Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), a local hitman, is hired to restore all mob order. He is brought in by Driver (Richard Jenkins), who tells him that Markie must be taught a lesson. Jackie's idea of being "taught a lesson" is having him whacked not because of his guilt or involvement, but so confidence and loyalty can be restored among its members. Jackie later informs people like Driver and Mickey (James Gandolfini) that he enjoys killing his victims softly, avoiding any last minute pleading, weeping, begging, or negotiating. He prefers shooting from a distance, so all feeling is omitted but all pride is obtained.

So one could say the basic plot is a hitman is hired to kill a mob member who has been shortchanging loyalty. I suppose, but at numerous points in this picture did I need to remind myself of that. Killing Them Softly stages numerous sets of dialog, lasting anywhere from a couple minutes to scenes like the opening heist that go on for roughly eight. Certain monologues and characters could've easily been left out, such as Gandolfini's Mickey, whose dialog exchanged with Jackie in his hotel room shows off nothing but his misogyny and his ability to give hookers foul and rancid sex tips.

One thing that Dominik attempts to concoct throughout the film, but doesn't adhere to it until the final monologue of the film is the idea that "America isn't a country; it's a business," talking about every man for themselves, that we work individually not as a community, and all of us should function as anti-corporate individuals. I have no problem with that ideology or the polar opposite one being portrayed in a film, but it's the treatment that fails it for me. This is pretty generic formula that was well alive in films like Goodfellas and even so far back as The Godfather; two pictures that chew up and spit this one out. Throughout the film we see scenes punctuated with news stations or billboards showing former president George W. Bush, 2008 Republican nominee John McCain, or current president Barack Obama either reminding us that America is in consistent turmoil or that our financial future will be restored under their presidency. The purpose of these clips is not announced until the final scene in the film, and never do we get a solid character opinion on the political system in America; which is odd considering we are bombarded with boring, irrelevant banter from mobster archetypes for roughly one hundred minutes.

Killing Them Softly wants to showcase award-winning, renowned actors in a mob thriller. It also wants to show us how American politics have falsely and artificially reminded us we are united as one, when we all work with very different agendas. And it wants to show the sporadic conversations that can derail off course easily and never fully regain or pick up any traction. The point is I get it. I get what the film was trying to pull off. My problem is that it undermines the talent involved, and takes a simple, sufficient idea and makes it a lot preachier than need be, acts as if it's trying something new, and then gives us the atmosphere of the seventies, with grit and old-fashioned cars, but nudging it to fit current, rough, uncertain times.