"You ever kill
anyone? They get touchy-feely, emotional, a lot of fuss. They either plead or
beg. They call for their mothers. I like to kill 'em softly…from a
distance."
As the old saying goes, "Never judge a book by its
cover." So it goes with Killing Them
Softly, a film seemingly depicted by the trailers as an action-packed crime
thriller. Comparing it to a John Woo movie, would be like comparing Drive to The Fast and the Furious. Killing
Them Softly is arthouse noir masquerading as typical multiplex fare.
Killing Them Softly
is written and directed by Andrew Dominik whose previous film was The Assassination of Jesse James by the
Coward Robert Ford, a hauntingly beautiful picture that had more in common
with Terrence Malick than the average shoot 'em up Western. Dominik's latest
work is based on the 1974 novel, Cogan's
Trade, by George V. Higgins, who stands alongside Dennis Lehane as one of
the preeminent authors of Boston crime fiction. The only other book by Higgins
that has been translated to cinema is The
Friends of Eddie Coyle, a cult classic of gritty 70's cinema with Robert
Mitchum perfectly cast in the title role of a low-level crook forced to turn
informant to avoid prison.
The stylish dialogue remains largely intact, but Dominik has
moved the story to a post-Katrina New Orleans in 2008. Obama, Bush, and John
McCain serve as a Greek chorus as excerpts of their speeches about the
financial collapse, the massive bailouts, and the murky future of the country
play throughout the movie. Dominik sets the stage with a jarring opening as
audio of then-Senator Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention is
intercut with distorted feedback. A lone figure walks through the desolate
streets as litter floats around him. The final images are side-by-side
billboards of the presidential candidates and their photogenic smiles as they
survey the ruined kingdom they hope will be their prize. It's a prologue that
feels ripped out of an experimental film.
From there, Killing Them
Softly cuts to a more conventional scene as Johnny Amato aka Squirrel
(Vincent Curatola) hires two crooks, Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and his
drug-addled friend Russell (Ben Mendelsohn), to knock over a high-stakes poker
game for mobsters. The clandestine games are run by Markie Trattman (Ray
Liotta), who actually robbed one of his games years ago. No one could prove he
did it though he later drunkenly bragged about pulling the job, yet his bosses
still gave him a pass. Johnny knows that if the game is robbed again, it will
be Markie who falls immediately under suspicion. This is where Jackie Cogan
(Brad Pitt) enters the story (after almost half an hour) in grand fashion,
snorting cigarette smoke and driving a classic town car to the tune of
"The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash. Cogan is hired to track down
the thieves and deal with them in his own indomitable manner.
Dominik incessantly hammers home the idea that the entire
film is a parable for the economic crisis and that there is little difference
between the financial sector and organized crime. The heads of the mafia are
never seen and only represented by Richard Jenkins as a middle management suit
exasperated by the corporate structure he's entrenched in. Only in this corporate
structure could Trattman be allowed to steal from his own company and be placed
in a position where he could do so again. Cogan himself is surrounded by incompetent
underlings and indecisive superiors. They move about in a world where everyone
makes their money by gambling, stealing, and scamming from one another. It's a
world where loyalty is an inconvenience when it comes to saving your own ass.
It's a thoroughly masculine world too with the only female character in the
movie being a prostitute.
Then, there's New York Mickey (James Gandolfini) who could
be seen as a thinly veiled representation of the SEC or any other ineffectual
watchdog committee. Mickey is a renowned enforcer brought in by Cogan to assist
in the murder of Johnny Amato. Much to Cogan's dismay, Mickey has become a bitter
shell of his former self. Mickey drowns his self-pity with booze and hookers as
he bemoans his shattered marriage and an impending prison sentence.
Buried underneath the ham-fisted political rhetoric is a
compelling film yearning to breathe. The dialogue crackles and the performances
are strong. Pitt moves across the screen with an effortless swagger wrapped in
a black leather coat. The scenes he shares with Gandolfini are some of the best
in the movie though they could have been excised entirely with no impact to the
rest of the narrative. They exist as if they were separate one-act plays
written by David Mamet. Gandolfini initially turned the part down due to its
similarities to Tony Soprano. Gandolfini isn't the only one typecast as a gangster, there's also Ray
Liotta and Vincent Curatola, another Sopranos
alum. You can easily see Soprano, Henry Hill, and Johnny Sack slowly turning into these pathetic wrecks. However, their roles feel short changed, not surprising since Dominik edited the
picture from an early two and a half hour cut to 97 minutes. One supporting
standout is Ben Mendelsohn, an Aussie actor used to portraying scumbags. He
recently popped up as a ruthless executive in The Dark Knight Rises, but first gained notice as the psychotic
Pope in Animal Kingdom. As Russell, Mendelsohn
is the definition of sleazy so much so you'll want to take a shower after
watching him. He's constantly caked in a layer of sweat and dresses like a
disheveled hobo. Sam Shepard appears in one scene as an enforcer named Dillon,
who was superbly played by Peter Boyle in the aforementioned Friends of Eddie Coyle.
Anyone who has seen Assassination
of Jesse James knows Dominik is capable of crafting gorgeous imagery. Killing Them Softly is no exception as
Dominik stages sequences that are both poetic and violent. There's a brutal
beatdown soaked in rain, blood, and vomit. Later, a shooting occurs in slow
motion as a bullet exits a man's skull as beads of water and broken glass swim
in a sea of crimson red. When Russell does heroin, Dominik uses a trippy first
person perspective reminiscent of Gaspar Noé's interminable Enter the Void. The soundtrack selection
is just as on the nose as Dominik's message with "Heroin" by Velvet
Underground scoring the scene and Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I
Want)" over the end credits.
"I'm living in
America and in America you're on your own. America's not a country, it's a
business. Now fuckin' pay me."
That final line, delivered by Pitt as a cynical response to
Obama's hopeful inaugural address, encapsulates Dominik's themes more succinctly
than the heavy handed method he employs. It may be amusing to imagine a
criminal underworld that subsists solely on a steady stream of C-SPAN and NPR, Killing Them Softly would have been
better served with the same distanced approach used by its protagonist.
Rating: ** ½ (*****)
