KILLING THEM SOFTLY

Jesse's Rating: ★★

Director: Andrew Dominik

Year: 2012

Cast: Brad Pitt, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta

Genre: Crime/Thriller

MPAA Rating: R

        Killing Them Softly is one of those movies that even six months since its release, I'm still trying to figure out why it got made, how it was able to get made, and why anyone would want to make it. It's director, Andrew Dominik, from what I found out in an interview, actually said that his film was sort of a comedy. Well, it is about as comedic as Platoon (1986). In all honesty, Killing Them Softly is dour, depressing, and the cinematic equivalent of an oil sludge. It has the minimal amount of plot,  with plot holes which are the size of craters on the moon. Added to that, you have James Gandolfini (I kind of thought he was an important part of the story) enter the film with two 5-10 minutes scenes only to be never heard from again. Oh and I almost forgot, Sam Shepard, a well known actor, inhabits about 30 seconds of screen time with only a couple of lines of dialogue. Huh? In truth, this film has other characters you feel sorry for and don't care about at the same time (not easy to pull off but nevertheless this is not a compliment). And believe it or not, what's on screen was based on a novel (Coogan's Trade by George V. Higgins). With 97 minutes of virtually nothing of real importance, I'm sure that it must have been one epic novel.

        Now I would never give a movie zero stars because well, I've never made one and I'm sure it's very hard work. I usually give a review a minimum of one star. With this one, I'll throw in another because the performances are pretty decent (especially Brad Pitt, who tends to give good performances in bad movies). His character, Jackie Cogan, plays a philosophical hitman who has to off a couple of guys that rob a mob protected card game. He's gets the okay from Driver (Richard Jenkins, a mafia diplomat) and proceeds to also implicate another hitman to help out with the job (Mickey Fallon, played with schizophrenic void by James Gandolfini). That's basically the whole movie. Everything in between is conversations with 1-3 actors (usually most of the scenes are between two). This gives Killing Them Softly an empty, shut out feeling. Some movies succeed with a "behind closed doors" ramification. This is not one of them. As a viewer myself, I felt a sense of solitude and possibly needed to see a psychiatrist (you know I'm kidding). 

        Despite many of it's shortcomings, I can honestly say that it was however, well shot. And Dominik seems to love to use special lenses. They highlight the images of a drug addicted haze through the eyes of some of the characters. This is done before they commit their crimes or get killed. But really, what's the point? If there is any message to convey from all of this, it's explained in T.V. images throughout the film of Obama preaching out to the world during what I guess is the 2008 Presidential election. That's not enough for me. And I'm sure that based on the box office take for Killing Them Softly, other moviegoers felt the same way. At the end of the film, Pitt utters the line, "America is not a country, it's just a business. Now pay me." That's sound advice. I wish I could go back in time when I saw this movie at the theatre. I'd tell the manager at the box office, he or she needs to pay me to see this dud.

-Written by Jesse Burleson