Killing Them Softly – On DVD

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Killing Them Softly – On DVD
By Hervé St-Louis
April 11, 2013 - 12:21

Studios: Annapurna Pictures, 1984 Private Defense Contractors, Plan B Entertainment, Chockstone Pictures
Writer(s): Andrew Dominik, George V. Higgins
Starring: Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Sam Shephard
Directed by: Andrew Dominik
Produced by: Brad Pitt
Running Time: 98 minutes
Release Date: March 26 2013
Rating: R (Restricted)
Distributors: The Weinstein Company

Killing Them Softly, a cerebral mob thriller posits that the crime world is like the regular world of the economy and public markets where demand and offers rule. The more there is money, the more there is liquidity and the more there are hired killers of worth the less they are worth in the market. Brad Pitt plays mob enforcer Jackie Cogan who has to clean up a heist on an illegal gambling operation run by mobsters.

I’m not convinced that the analogy to economic markets works for this movie. The theme was overheard in speeches from Nick Romney and Barrack Obama set during the latest American presidential election. The speeches which tie the crime storyline with the economy but their playback is tenuous and seem more like background noise than an actual important contribution to the story.

The actual story of the heist and the enforcement thereafter are not very complex plot-wise and I was surprised at how shallow the movie felt. In another production, this would have been just one arc of an entire story. Although the characters speak a lot, I still did not feel that I understood Brad Pitt’s character. There were a lot of omissions about how he gained his information on the heist.

Visually, this movie has some blood and gore, but not as much as I was expecting. This is a good thing. My main problem with this film is that the director thinks that long pauses, sighs and silent scenes equate story development and depth. Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, featuring Ryan Gosling had equal amounts of silence but actually packed a lot of valuable information and enhanced the story. Not so in Killing Them Softly.

Rating: 6.5/10

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