Posted by Thomas Willett
December 6, 2012
After a five year break since The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, writer/director Andrew Dominik returns to cinema with Killing Them Softly. The story follows Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) as he rights some wrongs involving a major robbery from the mob. The trailer promises violent gun play, slick dialogue, and plenty of Johnny Cash music. What is not shown is the excessive use of speeches by political figures like George W. Bush and then-senator Barrack Obama. This is all intended to mesh into one profound tale of modern America. Is Dominik capable of creating a strong message that correlates violence to politics, or does the ambition fall flat?
The movie isn’t shy about pushing the political angle. It opens on a shot of an empty warehouse as Obama is talking about unity. Everything that follows contradicts that in a bloody, talkative manner that aims for gripping commentary but ends up being a basic cat and mouse game. It isn’t an interesting one, either. The perspective mostly lies between Cogan and the two culprits: Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn), who control the screen for the first half of the film with poise and perverted wit. The robbery on Mark Trattman’s (Ray Liota) mob is an intense contrast that almost serves as the point where the film turns every character from interesting to stock characters.
This is where Cogan comes in. Absent for most of the film, he is introduced driving to Cash’s “The Man Comes Around.” He is supposed to exude a cool hit man status, but quickly gets overshadowed by Mickey (James Gandolfini), an impatient hedonist gangster that sees Gandolfini playing that familiar Tony Soprano-like role. He is still an engaging aspect of the film and produces some of the more memorable moments. This only puts into contrast what makes Cogan less interesting. His desire to be impersonal and quiet doesn’t translate well to film. Even the tension that carries the silent moments doesn’t work. Cogan isn’t an interesting character, which makes him, as the protagonist, more unfortunate.
Dominik’s adaptation of George V. Higgins’s 1974 book “Cogan’s Trade” is at most interesting. The choice to update it to a modern context with political speeches was a nice touch, but one that quickly falls into novelty. At times, the speeches force the audience to think certain ways and it almost feels like an agenda as a result. With the majority of the film being long conversations, Dominik starts off strong with his Frankie and Russell characters, but cannot figure out how to make tense dialogue work. The most problematic aspect is that it takes forever for the film to do anything, and despite a 97 minute run time, it feels long. Also, the final payoff does a disservice if the story was going for a slow burn.
What he does do right is the action. While the majority of the film is conversations, there are violent, bloody set pieces that almost make the film redeemable. In one scene, a brutal car shooting turns into an elaborate piece of beauty as it shows the destruction in slow motion to ambient music. The film is ripe with artistic moments that seem out-of-place to the rest of the film, but initially show a director with potential. It becomes frustrating when Cogan turns the climax of the film into a broad political statement about America. While Brad Pitt has done political satire before, very few of his performances compare to how on the nose it is here. The film chooses politics over entertainment, and it isn’t better for it.
Killing Them Softly is an unambitious tale of how crime and politics mesh. While it starts strong with snappy, entertaining humor, it quickly devolves into brooding men wasting time. The film lacks any reason to care about the characters. This serves to detriment the film’s political messages and makes it seem preachy. With exception to James Gandolfini, none of the performances are memorable. The only thing that works is the artistic portrayal of violence, which is done to disturbingly effective results. Maybe if Andrew Dominik applied his artistic charm to the plot, this would have been a better film.
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