Movie review: Killing them softly - missing the bull’s eye

Spoiler alert.

When it comes to crime films, Killing Them Softly is as recognisable as a gunshot. The movie is adapted from the 1974 novel Cogan’s Trade, by George V Higgins. Directed by Andrew Dominik, this is a grim, brutal and cynical movie, which is slickly shot and features plenty of suspenseful scenes.  

Killing Them Softly sports the mugs of some familiar tough guy actors, including Ray Liotta (Goodfellas), James Gandolfini (The Sopranos), and the highly versatile Brad Pitt (Fight Club). Here, the latter gives an unsettling performance as a sociopathic gunman, who has earned a reputation for his passion to kill ‘softly’.

It is quite disappointing, though, that the film’s script itself lacks softness, preferring to bludgeon viewers with overbearing political commentary and exertive efforts aimed at drawing parallels between the business of crime and the American economy.

The plot of the film involves the robbery of an illegal mob poker game by criminals Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and his junkie friend Russell (Ben Mendelsohn). This job is masterminded by Johnny Amato (Vincent Curatola), who targets the game being held by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta). Amato reasons that if the game is robbed easily, the mob will automatically conclude that it is an inside job, blaming and executing Markie, who had once robbed his own game, and then admitted to it in a drunken state, only to be forgiven.

At this point, hit man Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) is hired to assassinate Markie. Jackie immediately realises that Markie is being set up, but concludes that the man must be killed regardless, in order to protect consumer confidence in his business. What follow are some thoroughly cold and violent scenes, while the characters engage in wordy dialogue, as President George Bush gives speeches in the background about the American economic collapse and how bail-outs to struggling companies are the solution to regaining consumer confidence. Here we are forced to conclude that the American government tries to solve its problems like the mob itself.

Dominik creates a neo-noir world, with scenes set in bars, cars and dark industrial suburbs. It’s gritty and stylish without being conceited. The film includes a great slow-motion sequence involving a bullet to the head in which the beauty provides a stark contrast to the brutality. Despite the fact that it’s is only 97-minutes long, Killing Them Softly still feels a bit lax and overlong. But the dialogues are sharp and so are the performances.

If you can look past the flaws in the film’s clumsy script, Killing Them Softly has something to offer with its intense mob scenes, and sometimes hilariously dark humour. Although the imperfections in the film keep it from making a killing, it isn’t quite ‘dead on arrival’ either.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, December 16^th, 2012.

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