Killing Them Softly

Plot synopsis:
In the fall of 2008, during both the American financial crisis and the presidential election campaign, an older man named Johnny "Squirrel" Amato plans to rob an illegal poker game. He enlists two younger men to do the robbery: Frankie, a former business associate, and Russell, a heroin-addicted Australian expatriate who is stealing purebred dogs for money. Markie Trattman, the proprietor of the poker ring, is revealed to have previously orchestrated an inside job by paying two men to rob his own illegal poker room. He holds up under rough questioning by the hitman Dillon, though later he openly admits his involvement to various criminals who laugh it off, and Markie suffers no retaliation. Squirrel anticipates that the Mafia will automatically blame Markie for the heist.
Frankie and Russell, though obviously amateurs, do the holdup and leave with the money. However, Driver, an emissary for the Mob, discusses the recent robbery with an acquaintance of Dillon, a hitman and mob enforcer named Jackie Cogan. Although Jackie understands Markie was uninvolved in the recent heist, he believes Markie should be murdered in order to restore the mobsters' confidence in the local illegal gambling scene.
Upon completing the crime, Russell travels to Florida to sell the dogs. While in Florida, he inadvertently informs a man named Kenny Gill of his involvement in the heist while trying to recruit him as a drug dealer. Kenny informs Jackie, who deduces that Russell, Frankie, and Squirrel are the perpetrators.
Jackie carries out the hit on Markie himself, killing him in his car, but brings in another older hitman, Mickey Fallon, who is on parole in New York, to kill Squirrel. Jackie explains to Driver how he prefers "killing them softly"—shooting his victims from a distance, without warning, giving them no opportunity to experience fear or despair—and that his acquaintance with Squirrel risks complicating this approach.
Mickey postpones going through with his assigned hit, instead indulging in drunkenness and sex with prostitutes in a hotel room. During conversation with Jackie, Mickey also reveals that he has violated his parole, and doesn't seem to care about or really comprehend the consequences; instead he goes off on drunken tangents. It becomes clear to Jackie that the respected hitman has lost his nerve and ability to do his job. Jackie eventually decides to carry out the hit on Squirrel himself. He convinces Driver to arrange Mickey's arrest before the job has been completed.
Russell is arrested on a drug possession charge and deported; meanwhile, Jackie confronts Frankie and convinces him to trade Squirrel's whereabouts for his life. Jackie has Frankie drive him to Squirrel; upon reaching Squirrel's apartment complex, he kills Squirrel with a shotgun. After confirming Squirrel is dead, Jackie has Frankie drive him to get his car several hours away. Frankie becomes very nervous and begins speeding. Unable to get Frankie to slow down, Jackie takes over driving. Once they arrive at the parking garage, Jackie shoots Frankie in the head without warning. Jackie then wipes down any fingerprints he might have left and leaves the scene.
On the night of the presidential election, Jackie meets with Driver to collect his fee for the three hits. On the TV in the bar, Barack Obama is giving his election victory speech. Jackie sees that he has been paid $30,000. He alleges that at $10,000 each, Driver has underpaid him for the jobs—on the argument that it would have cost $15,000 to have Mickey kill Squirrel. Driver responds that Dillon charges ten, and tells Jackie to take it up with Dillon. Jackie tells Driver that Dillon died that morning. Referring to Obama's speech, Jackie says angrily, "This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community? Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America, and in America, you're on your own. America is not a country; it's just a business. Now fucking pay me."

Tags: realism, violence, boring, murder, flashback

Review:
It's a film you have to settle into and to watch and listen carefully, yet it provides us with storytelling style very similar to the likes of Quentin Tarantino and classic Danny Boyle.It also makes good use of some classic conventions and you may notice a little bit of Mean Streets, Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Chopper, Pulp Fiction, Trainspotting etc.When ex-convict Frankie and his Australian heroin-addict friend Russell are employed to hold up a mafia poker game in their rundown dead end town, they get away with it, though causing the local economy to collapse and putting mob boss Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta) in the frame.The dons send mob enforcer Jackie (Brad Pitt) over to deal with it and to set an example, he methodically sets about cleaning up in due fashion.That is the plot, pure and simple, but aside from that, 'Killing Them Softly' is more a film about the bleak, harsh reality of crime in the modern day American towns that the government has all but abandoned and it is therefore about the sheer dead-end desperation of a certain breed of people.Unemployment, recession, drug addiction, violence, desperation, failing health, wilful self-destruction and the disgusting manner in which people regard each other with - it all adds up to one great stark reality.
Killing Them Softly is a film that feels its political parallels are  enough of a mask for it to be seen as an intelligential masterpiece,  but it feels too demeaning to have everything spelled out like that,  which was made worse given the story played second fiddle to these  political parallels.
Yes, They Can Still Make 'Em Like They Used To. Brad Pitt and Andrew Dominik's fantastic Killing Them Softly has the rigor and grace of the great American crime pictures of the 1970s.
Although the The political message is a little heavy-handed and a bit repetitive, Andrew Domink crafts a memorable and highly thought-provoking crime film, with Brad Pitt shows the world again, that he's a fantastic actor that always surpasses the hype around him..
Although the movie is set right around 2008, there's no relevance to the story at all and it's almost like Brad Pitt is trying to make a political point but isn't really clear on what the point is.
I don't need big action to keep my simple mind entertained, but I do like my movies to have a good plot and a sense of movement.
This movie has none of it and I was not surprised at all to see 3 people walk out just over half way through as I was thinking of doing the same thing myself.I really like Brad Pitt and I would struggle to think of a bad movie he's been in up until this one came along.
The whole thing is like a hyped-up Guy Ritchie or Quentin Tarantino: some good acting, stunning cinematography, a profanity-rich script, but overall a talky, pretentious and very, very violent movie - and quite tedious..
Pitt, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendlesohn and Ray Liotta all fit their roles nicely and deliver very good performances.
It is a major shame these characters were not used in any remotely interesting way.My theory is that the filmmakers discovered they had only a 70-minute film and then decided to add the essentially irrelevant dialogue--many scenes of two actors sitting and talking.
I'm not sure what people are looking for nowadays, but from reading the reviews of this excellent movie, I fear it is some sort of escapist garbage: Killing Them Softly was one of those crime movies that just seems like a slice of real life just slightly above the gutter.
I didn't know it was based on a George Higgans novel, either, and I was thinking while watching it that I hadn't seen a crime movie this good since 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle,' only to find out that both movies were based on books by the same author.I just got sucked in, the tension was great and interrupted periodically by the dark humor that is so typical of lowlife criminals and junkies.
Many, I'm sure, tuned in - went to the flicks, bought the video, watched online illegally - after hearing that Brad Pitt is a hit-man called in to clear up a mess, and they will, most probably, have been disappointed.Killing The Softly is most certainly not your average gangster flick.
For, whether you think it justified or not, a murder it was.In a sense Pitt is just Obama without the liberal veneer: he does what he is paid to do - America is business - and is under no illusions as to what he is doing.So be warned: yes, you'll get lots of tension-building gangster scenes and, yes, you'll get your guts full of gore if that's what you want (and many, of course, do), but Killing The Softly is a million miles away from being the kind of gangster flick you (and my son, who started watching it with me, but gave up halfway through) expect.
It contains some of the most beautiful set pieces, wonderful acting and often hilarious dialogue.Forget the plot, this is about the characters, all rich and wonderfully imagined, from the heroin addict selling stolen dogs to the ageing assassin unable to keep going without drink, drugs and women.And all these characters are beautifully fleshed out by some of the most incredible cinematography you'll see in a film this year.
Scenes are devoted just to funny anecdotes, the sort of thing two criminals going to a job might discuss to keep themselves calm.Andrew Dominik has without a doubt created one of the most original and beautiful films I've seen in a long while..
Slow-burner crime flick that's thankfully free of the usual action film silliness.Two low level goons rob a card game run by the mob and, by making off with the wedge, apparently cause the city's 'criminal economy' to collapse.It's a rather heavy metaphor of American economics and the wealth divide that comes with unshackled capitalism, set in 2008 the Bush/Obama electoral race plays out in the background to reinforce this.
The plot of the film itself is an obvious micro-study of America's wobbly fiscal position, Brad Pitt's final sentences in the film sum it up well.Although set in recent times, the film seems to make a strong effort to look like something from past decades.
I was excited,saw the trailer,looked really good,i like Brad Pitt,Gandolfini too,glad to see Liotta here as well,seen Chopper done by Andrew Dominik.
Both films end up being boring in the extreme purely because the scripts are neither witty nor engaging, in fact they turn out to be mindless and yawn-inducing, written by people who clearly think they're clever than they actually are.It's a pity, because like DEATH PROOF this has the potential to be good.
I appreciate the filmmakers were trying to achieve something different here but it's one big fail if I'm honest.KILLING THEM SOFTLY wastes the talents of an interesting cast, not least Pitt who can be absolutely electrifying on screen given the right role (FIGHT CLUB, for instance).
Andrew Dominik's third feature is an interesting, often entertaining but also frustrating crime thriller which reunites the Australian film-maker with Jesse James star Brad Pitt.
Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), an efficient and clinical hit man is brought in by a mysterious lawyer (the ever great Richard Jenkins) - with connections to an unidentified network of authorities inside and out of the underworld - to clean up the entire mess.Dominik seems to relish in deconstructing audiences perceptions of gangster-genre veterans such as James Gandolfini, Curatola, and Liotta.
The soundtrack is hip but jars, instead of enhancing the action.Several scenes are ripe for witty or gritty dialogue (the robbery scene, the beating scene) but instead opt either for violence or silence.The acting is good, as you'd expect, but it quickly becomes obvious that stars of the calibre of Gandofini and Pitt have been attracted by sheer screen time, rather than quality.
It is very hard to imagine that anyone would make this story into a movie, especially Brad Pitt, or Liotta or Gandolfini except for one reason.Pay me the money!
I have no idea how this has managed to gain even a single good review i guess people don't understand a good movie anymore.I think this may actually be the worst film i have ever seen, it was so bad i don't even remember the plot and i watched it about 2 days ago and there is literally no ending, the most pointless movie I've ever seen it starts nowhere and then ends nowhere If you value your time do not bother watching this movie, i suggest you go and watch Django Unchained instead or if you really have your heart set on watching a movie with Brad Pitt watch a good one like fight club, top gun or snatch, 3 movies with Brad Pitt that are amazing i don't understand why he agree'd to act in such an atrocious movie after starring in such classics..
Even the Animated movie Brad Pitt (MegaMind) was one of the best kids animated movies I've seen.This is an exception, I created an account so i can write this review to warn people not to waste their time or money.
There's one scene where slow motion and high definition footage is used but after that it's all quick and brutal but it works really well.The acting performances are pretty good; Brad Pitt was excellent, it's been a while where we have seen him play an antagonist.
A year later, two dumb criminals try and do the same thing to Markie, but lacking the sense of Markie, soon find mob enforcer Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) on their trail.I don't recall seeing a trailer for Killing Them Softly, and with the lay out of the poster and the cast involved, it looked like your typical mob thriller, which still could have had potential.
But when the dust clears an settles, Killing Them Softly is found to be a little wanting, although a reprieve is found in not being anywhere close to the meditative behemoth of his earlier film starring Brad Pitt as Jesse James.Adopting from a 1970s novel written by George V.
It muddles about for a little while as primary schemer Johnny (Vincent Curatola) enlists the help of Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and reluctantly, his junkie buddy Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) to pull off a job that has opportunity written all over it, no thanks to Markie having to commit an insider job once, and getting away with the heist even when exposed that he was the mastermind.Richard Jenkins' middle-man Driver character for the mob enters the picture, and engages the services of Jackie to go put things right, where those responsible would have to get pumped with lead.
Almost single-handedly carrying the film as the rest of the actors are relative unknowns, the film picked up with his character's introduction, and accompanying graphic violence that perhaps was unnecessary, if not to want to shock the unsuspecting audience into awe at its matter-of-factness.Good production values, brilliant art direction and fine cinematography continue to be hallmarks of Andrew Dominik's film, but here you'd feel short changed at its abrupt ending that didn't go anywhere.
Nothing much to review about the movie, simple words, no character depth, talking rubbish, counting crows all the way till the end, better off with a comedy movie than this, worst movie ever, this movie really is very boring, I was hoping to see more action and crime scenes but as the title says its too soft with no action and little crime going on behind the script, if you want more action better off with "Jack Reaper" and better still go with "Seven Psychopaths" which you will not cry for the loss of time and entertainment, a movie is to make a person entertained as well as think with a good story although not much stupid CGI (which is clogging the movie industry of acting talents and stories of daily reality) makeovers in this movie but still the movie is spoil with down to the average screenplay, story and build up for any action to take place, this is more like a TV sitcom + marketing strategy using good actors to please audience into believing this is something special..
Well, mostly it doesn't, and mainly because Killing Them Softly takes a very different approach to the crime genre, with mixed results.Set in New Orleans, the story follows a heist gone wrong, as hopeless criminal junkies Frankie and Russell (played by Scoot McNairy and the wonderful Ben Mendelsohn) stick up a big time card game with disastrous concequences.
Liotta, however, feels under used and Richard Jenkins' screen time is also brief and underwhelming.While the film is successful in it's stylish, refreshing attitude and contains an undeniably brilliant cast, the pacing of Killing Them Softly is it's main problem, as it fails to ever really lift off the ground and hit full power.
Fans expecting action will be disappointed; Killing Them Softly is as laid back as the gangster genre gets, and it's best features are in it's witty, clever dialogue and the underlying political message which is carried throughout in the form of Barack Obama and George Bush's constant radio and television presence, which ties in skillfully with the money obsessed criminals in the failing economic climate of New Orleans.In stark contrast to Dominik and Pitt's last collaboration (which many found to be overlong and impossibly slow), Killing Them Softly is short and sweet at just 97 minutes and doesn't outstay it's welcome, but while some would complain of it's limited running time, there was no need for it to be any longer.Overall, while Killing Them Softly will never compete with modern crime classics such as ''The Departed'', the unusual style it encorporates makes it memorable in its own right and it deserves to be seen..
The title comes from the main character professional hit-man Jackie Cogan who confides that he likes to carry out his missions without getting to close to the victims so that he doesn't have to hear their whining and pleas and crying etc as he kills them - distance allows him to kill them softly.We learn that Markie (Ray Liotta) some years back made a lot of money by raiding a gambling game.
So with that out of the way, I found this film pretty interesting to watch though like my movie theatre-working friend, I agree it was pretty weird.
I mean, not seeing Brad Pitt, the film's supposed star, until about 20 minutes in was not too much a surprise to me since I knew this was more of an art-house film with the dialogue meant to address certain philosophical issues or maybe the political landscape at the time since this takes place just before the 2008 election as evidenced by all the G.W. Bush and Obama footage.
It seems like people were expecting a shoot-em-up action thriller, but Killing Them Softly is a different kind of film.
I would have loved to seen more of his character.Overall, Killing Them Softly is a dark, bleak film that is relevant to our troubled economic times.
This movie had serious potential, yet despite the cast of very interesting characters involved(and some very good actors such as Ray Liotta and Brad Pitt), this movie fails in almost every form of storytelling.
His speeches of hope and the potential of the United States are intermingled with a base and grimy tale of two inveterate idiots who devise what they think is an elaborate plan to steal from the mob and frame someone else for the job.It's this act, and the almost unbearably tense robbery scene, which sets up the rest of the film – forcing Brad Pitt's Jackie to go after those responsible.Killing Them Softly is a film about death, the necessity of it at the darker edges of the world but also the way in which it can be seen as a mercy.
The producers did not even see fit to bother with a musical score, but underlined the scenes of the movie periodically with un-related speeches by Obama (related to the financial crisis of 2008 - 2009) which had no relevance to the story at hand.I only watched this in the first place because Brad Pitt & James Gandolfini were headline actors - terrible disappointment.
I was looking forward to watching great actors such as Pitt and Gandolfini, then I was looking forward to forgetting this film.This looks or should I say hears like a Tarantino movie at its worst.
Good examples are the flashbacks in the first act, the fact that the mob that hires Jackie is never present and doesn't get any names (just like the financial powers at the top, which are also "killing us softly") or the last sequence, but in general it always works.Having said that, without this context the film wouldn't be as memorable, but it would still be pretty powerful, given that its main qualities come from the dialog, the performances and the atmosphere/directing style.
In no time hit-man Jackie Cogan is hunting them down and never mind the collateral damage.Written and directed by Dominik, who also gave us that great elegiac western "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", "Killing them Softly" may be the first great gangster film to come out of the current economic recession.
And just consider the fact that after killing several men for being thieves, these exact same mafia bosses then try and rob Brad Pitt's character of what he is actually financially entitled to from them.The reason both Obama and Bush are heard at different times in the film is because we are meant to realize that this problem is not exclusive to either the left or the right, it is about what America, as a whole, has allowed itself to become as a nation.