Product Description
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Brad Pitt stars in this darkly comic thriller based on a 1974
George V. Higgins crime novel. Jackie Cogan (Pitt) is a
professional 'point man'--that is, the investigator who prepares
the way for a hitman--who is assigned to track down a pair of
junkies who have ripped off a mob-protected poker game. The
star-studded supporting cast includes Ray Liotta, James
Gandolfini, Scoot McNairy and Sam Shepard.
.co.uk Review
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Based on Killing Them Softly's somewhat misleading promotional
campaign, expectant audiences may have thought they were in for
an action-driven crime thriller. There's plenty of grit, street
life, gangland lingo, and nuts-and-bolts criminal insiderism, but
the overall tone is more akin to a David Mamet play than a
rollicking Hollywood shoot-'em-up.
The movie is an adaptation of the fine George V. Higgins novel
Cogan's Trade, and it nicely transposes the tone and delivery of
Higgins's spare prose into a visual style that keeps a long,
lingering gaze on its unlovable bad guys. It also holds an
attentive ear to the rhythm and pattern of their speech, turning
the extended stretches of dialogue into unique tableaux of
stylish exchanges between hit men, lowlife punks, and middle
management gangsters. These scenes of hushed talk are infused
with deeper meaning, not to mention lots of wit, and they make up
the bulk of the film, whether in cars, bars, or hotel rooms or on
street corners.
Brad Pitt is a sleek and enigmatic presence as Jackie Cogan, a
professional killer who's as exasperated by the stupidity around
him as he is obsessed with the details of doing his job right.
After an odd couple of hess losers (Scoot McNairy and Ben
Mendelsohn, who are a hoot) hit a mob-run card game, Jackie is
called in to clean up the mess. Richard Jenkins is in terrific
form as the befuddled mob accountant who reluctantly gives him
the assignment. Thinking he'll need help with the job, Jackie
enlists his long-time associate Mickey. But as inhabited by James
Gandolfini, Mickey turns out to be a slovenly mess who Jackie
clearly sees is past his prime. There are two long, highly
oblique scenes between Pitt and Gandolfini that crackle with
greatness. Also in the soup of clouded meaning and distinctive
formal structure is Ray Liotta as Markie, the boob who runs the
card game. A rain-soaked scene that has Markie at the four-fisted
end of a brutal beat-down is one of the most vicious and visually
poetic fights ever seen.
The master of all the talking, fleeting sequences of grisly
violence and philosophizing about financial downfall and change
(the movie is set on the cusp of 2008's economic crisis and
presidential campaign) is director Andrew Dominik. Much as he did
in 2007's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert
Ford (also starring Brad Pitt), Dominik is much more interested
in the nuanced detail of manner and attitude than the physical
action that results. That's not to say that Killing Them Softly
doesn't excel at the remarkable execution of classic crime-drama
set pieces. But the movie and its characters take a lot of time
to hang back and observe and listen to get at the real meaning of
how things happen and why. It's a process that's fascinating to
watch, no matter how trivial the detail or how shocking the
result. --Ted Fry