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Last fall, viewers were strangely fascinated but generally baffled by Ryan Gosling’s gritty crime drama, Drive. While it marketed itself as an action-packed thriller, it was really more art-house drama than action flick. And the same is true of Brad Pitt’s latest, Killing Them Softly, a crime drama that’s nothing like the average Brad Pitt thriller.
In 2008, as politicians debate the nation’s failing economy, others have decided to take matters into their own hands. Johnny Amato (Vincent Curatola) hires ex-con Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and drug-dealer wannabe Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) to rob a Mob-run card game, confident that Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), the shady character in charge, will end up taking the fall.
After the heist, the Mob calls in enforcer Jackie Cogan (Pitt) to calm some nerves, order a few hits, and bring things back to business as usual. But it turns out that even Jackie’s business has been affected by the doom and gloom of the recession, and he’s forced to do some of the dirty work himself.
Like writer/director Andrew Dominik’s rambling 2007 Western, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Killing Them Softly isn’t the movie that you might expect it to be. Instead of a gritty shoot-‘em-up crime thriller, it’s long-winded and deliberate—a series of leisurely conversations punctuated by bursts of graphic violence. At times, it seems as though Dominik is trying to channel Quentin Tarantino. But these characters aren’t nearly as quirky nor their conversations nearly as interesting as anything that Tarantino would have come up with—even on a slow day. Most of the time, you’ll just want them to shut up and get on with it already.
But it’s not just the characters who talk too much; it’s also the politicians. It seems as though every scene has CSPAN or CNN or some kind of talk radio station playing in the background—to remind the audience of the story’s context while pushing its point. But while the circumstances add a new twist to the same old crime story, it feels painfully forced. And no matter how much Dominik would like you to believe that low-level thugs always listen to political discussions on talk radio while they’re driving around town, that’s probably not the case.
Meanwhile, the message itself isn’t exactly gripping or thought-provoking. Dominik keeps pointing out that the mobsters and thugs have been affected by the recession, too—but it’s hard to feel sorry for these characters, despite the fact that a good, clean hit just isn’t paying as much as it used to. It’s also pretty hard to believe that the small-time crooks in the movie wouldn’t attempt to hit up a card game if it weren’t for the bad economy.
Killing Them Softly does have some intriguing moments, but it simply tries way too hard to be cool and clever. Instead of a fast-moving crime thriller, it’s slow and morose—and it feels much longer than its 97 minutes. So if you need an action-packed energy boost this holiday season, you might want to stick with Skyfall.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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