Killing Them Softly Rating: 2.75/5

Killing Them Softly (KTS) isn’t a movie for the faint-hearted – but despite its guns and gore, it isn’t an all-out action flick either. Instead, it inhabits a shadowy half-land between thriller and dark comedy. KTS showcases an America devastated by recession, its underbelly worst-hit as mobsters must turn on their own, their pistols controlled by penny-pinching corporates. It’s a smart, sardonic view and despite some self-indulgent flailing, it captures the fear, loathing and loss of those caught against the American machine.KTS’s real star is actually its sound – rain pattering upon a Cadillac to crickets chirruping just before someone gets shot, olives bobbing in a Martini to police sirens wailing in the wind, KTS captures America’s enormity, emptiness and excitement – often killing the listener with silence. And some dynamite lines.

The start and the end both have steam, but the rest of this shindig — this Thomas Smalltown Affair — sags like a wet cigar, the kind Gandolfini’s character would spit out.Maybe it’s accurate. Maybe gangsters have indeed become corporate slaves, led around by whiny lawyers. Then again, maybe paint takes a fair while to dry. Killing Them Softly could still have worked, and shows off sparks of potential every now and again — an intoxicated, flashback-ridden conversation is a highlight — but its clunky America bashing is ultimately too childish. All we carry back is a whimsically shot scene, or a moment of slow-motion glory. And it isn’t worth it. Dominik’s film isn’t really a good fella, just a wiseguy. Fuggedaboutit.

Killing Them Softly is a brutal film that works as both a pitiless indictment of America and a heist movie that keeps you hooked until the end. The film is an adaptation of a 1974 novel called Cogans Trade but here the story becomes a metaphor for the rot in capitalism. At the end, Brad Pitt, playing the lead character of hitman Jackie Cogan, delivers the chilling verdict: Americas not a country. Its a business. If you like happy, life-affirming movies, then this one is not for you. Killing Them Softly is unapologetically cynical.

Killing Them Softly by director Andrew Dominik indeed seems more inspired by the Quentin Tarantino school of gangster films where they talk as much as they shoot. Here though while they talk, the dialogues come nowhere as close to the ludicrously compelling art of Tarantino. The conversations here are a series of dialogues punctuated by abuses, and in accents that are confusing, hard-to-follow and at times completely lose you.

Based on George V Higgins novel Cogans Trade, Killing Them Softly follows Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), a professional killer, as he attempts to uncover a heist by two small-time crooks, that happens during a mob-protected poker game.The films focus is on the economic turmoil and the period of transition for America from Bush to Obama.Killing Them Softly endeavours to introduce the audience to the workings of the criminal underworld. Despite a good cast and decent performances, Killing Them Softly fails to hit the right spots. The plot is messy and boringly obvious. Lengthy sequences and a tendency to preach ruins what could have been a thrilling crime flick.

At several places, one may find those Pulp Fiction-like pre-violence conversations that Jackie Cogan is seen doing. All in all, the film is smart from each and every aspect, with perfect performances from the entire star cast and superb behind-the-camera work by the crew especially the amazing effects captured and presented in pure Andrew Dominik style. It will also never let you forget Brad Pitts pithy condemnation of Thomas Jeffersons way of functioning the post-Independence law right down to the ultimate dialogue €œCrime is the business of America€, in other words, wheres theres money,theres a way when you live in America.Verdict: A fast-paced, electrifying story of a hitman portrayed masterfully by Andrew Dominik.