Killing Them Softly

I approached this with some caution as the last time director Andrew Dominik teamed up with Brad Pitt they gave us the snooze-athon that was The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The problem with that film was that it was all style and no substance, plus it also must have made some sort of cinematic record by having virtually nothing happen during it’s three hour running time. Well, for Killing Them Softly the running time problem has been resolved (this is a mere 90 minutes) but, somewhat unbelievably, you’ll leave the cinema thinking did actually anything happen in this film, either? The set up is thus: Adapted from the 1974 novel Cogan's Trade by George V. Higgins, Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) is a professional enforcer / hitman who is asked to step in and investigate a heist that occurs during a mob-protected card game. That spells bad news for the protagonists of said stick up, played by Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn  (both great with very different style of performances as their characters dictate). So with support from Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta and James Gandolfini, this sounds a bit of a cracker right? Wrong. Rather than a neat little drama / thriller, this is more a number of character vignettes just bungled together to make up a screenplay. Though if you do feel yourself drifting off at any point, Dominik throws in some meaty violence to jolt you awake (a beating that Liotta takes is brutal), though some of it is desensitised by computer effects. A recent film this could be a distant cousin of is Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, a film that also went for art over matter. The biggest difference is that Refn has a serious eye for detail (though that eye fails to work when it comes to the edit and coaxing great performances from his cast), whereas Dominik is more of a performance man. At least that means the acting in this film is superb from virtually all involved, with Jenkins (as the bad suited down to earth go-between for Cogan and the big cheese’s) and Gandolfini the standouts. Gandolfini in particular captures the attention in his short appearances (particularly stealing the film) as a frenemy enforcer of Cogan. His character is repulsive and it’s hats off to Gandolfini for making the audience so uneasy with the few minutes he has on screen. As I mentioned earlier, this film is basically just a lot of people sitting around talking. Nothing wrong with that of course, but when they actually have very little to discuss it starts to drag very quickly. Even Dominik realises this as in some scenes the camera trickery and effects come into play, but, much like the drug taking scene where this is utilised most effectively, is it all just a smoke screen? The worst thing about the film though is Dominik’s constant references to the US financial meltdown with virtually every scene turning into a discussion of the mighty dollar (or perhaps unmighty as Dominik would have it here). I was thinking it’s pretty lame to have a gangster story dressed up as a metaphor for monetary breakdown and was giving Dominik the benefit of the doubt until the very final scene where Pitt angrily intones “America isn’t a country. America is a business!”. Talk about having a point forced down your throat. The fact that the original cut for this was 150 minutes long pretty much sums it up really. The studio’s taken out a whole hour and this still struggles to keep the attention. By that reckoning it sounds like Dominik's career is running out of minutes to play with.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Others will no doubt rate this higher, but with very little happening and not much direction from Dominik I don’t think it warrants it. Rating: 5/10.