Ryan McNeil
When I was younger, I wasn’t exactly the greatest student. I used to drive my teachers especially nuts by not turning in my homework. Whenever that happened (which was, shamefully, often) I’d hear a common response. My teachers would often express disappointment, because even though my grades weren’t bad, they knew I was “capable of more”. At the time, I didn’t really understand what they meant by that.
KILLING THEM SOFTLY is the story of an illegal poker game that is robbed.
A crooked dry cleaner named Johnny (Vincent Curatola) wants to knock over a gambling ring that’s run by a hood named Markie (Ray Liotta). His theory is that because Markie has staged a robbery of his own racket once before and admitted as much, that he will be the one that all involved pin it on when it happens a second time. Thus he hire two low-level thugs named Frankie and Russell (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) to do his dirty work.
The problem is the people who have been robbed aren’t at all pleased that they’ve been robbed, and now want retribution. For that, they turn to a middle-management guy named Driver (Richard Jenkins)…who in turn brings in a hitman named Jackie (Brad Pitt).
Jackie is very good at what he does, so it doesn’t take long for him to piece how Markie, Johnny, and the hoods all tie in. From there it’s only a matter of time.
It’s difficult to understand how a film that begins with such promise can go so very wrong, but I believe part of comes down to trying to make a square peg fit into a square hole. KILLING THEM SOFTLY is based on the 1974 novel Coogan’s Trade, and obviously back in 1974 there was no spectre of financial collapse looming in the back of every American’s brain. Sure, there was uncertainty and restlessness in the shadow of The Watergate Scandal, but it didn’t cause the same sort of nervousness we saw four autumns ago. Still, we have some perspective on what happened in 2008 now, so if Andrew Dominik wanted to graft it on to a crime story, who am I to say otherwise?
Pity the angle doesn’t work.
The idea of financial uncertainty and what it means to all involved gets a nod when everybody walks into the joint, but after that it is left lingering at the end of the bar, nursing its beer with nobody to talk to. The problem is that it doesn’t want to linger quietly: it makes sure we always know it’s there (every third scene has a TV or radio dialed to someone discussing the issue). The collapse holds no bearing over what happens between Jackie, Frankie, Johnny and Markie. So why keep reminding us that it’s happening? It does nothing more than distract, and hit us over the head with setting.
OK, so the financial angle doesn’t work – at least we have the introspective gangster angle to soak up, right? Wrong.
For what seems like a lifetime, we listen to Mickey talk about everything he missed out on earlier in life, and how shitty his life is now. We patiently sit with him while he drinks and drinks and drinks, and stay long enough to hear him heckle a waiter and a prostitute. Through it all, he is giving us nothing. That sad sack at the end of the bar in my earlier analogy? Mickey makes him look cooler than James Dean. What’s worse is that all of this pathetic confession is coming from James Gandolfini – a man who defined a decade’s worth of television with genuine human introspection. Imagine Tony Soprano with no empire, family, or money. Now drown him in cheap scotch. That’s Mickey, and he’s as interesting as he sounds. As if it’s not bad enough that he drags down something that already feels like it’s being dragged down, his character is ultimately useless. That leaves a mark.
As we continue to slog through the ever-deepening mud, we cast our eyes towards Brad Pitt as Jackie for traction – but sadly he too is of no use. It’s not Brad’s fault, he does as much as he can with what he is given. The fault lays in the fact that he isn’t given much. He isn’t playing things stoically enough to give his character mystery, and he isn’t playing things cool enough to give his character danger. What he’s told to do, is be a patient listener. Horseshit – that’s our job. We are supposed to bring the pathos. We are supposed to see the fatal flaws. We are supposed to tell the sad-sacks when they should ask for the cheque. Jackie is supposed to be something we are not…which might explain why things seem to pick up during the fleeting moments when he embodies that very thing.
What it all adds up to is one giant missed opportunity. I would love to see a film that features Brad Pitt as a charismatic mob hitman…a film about how tough economic times affect organized crime…or a film where a criminal soul-searches as he prepares to take out a mark. Heck, I’d even love it if a film did one of things memorably. KILLING THEM SOFTLY is not that movie.
And yet, right before the lights come up, we’re left with one last thing that cements this film’s status as a missed opportunity. There’s a scene that is backdropped by Barack Obama giving his acceptance speech on election night 2008. The scene leads to one of the best monologues I’ve heard all year. The moment the monologue is over, the film cuts to black. So the film was capable of so much more – it just chose not to deliver them.
So that’s what got my teachers so riled up.
I think you went in with a case of hyper-inflated expectations. Granted, not everyone had a background with the book and the marketing was misleading, but less than two stars?
Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that I wrote about the focus of a review being its score?
Yes Virginia, one-and-a-half. For me the film is a mess, and not even a beautiful mess where the pluses and minuses cancel each other out. This was a film that got more wrong than it did right, and something I think is all-around bad. I’m pretty good at tempering my expectations, which weren’t all that high for this film mind you…so that too is a non-factor.
As a character piece, it’s thin. As a crime movie, it’s forgettable. As a commentary, it’s pointless. As a series of pretty pictures or snappy scenes, it’s a failure.
It certainly is a failure, in your eyes. For others it serves as contrast to the glorified lifetsyle of gangsters that Dominik had no interest in. The stylized sequences don’t help that angle, but it is an angle.
Contrast is a great idea – I would have loved that. Realism in a film still needs to come with a few peaks and valleys, and this film is amazingly flat.
I feel pretty close to what you wrote here. Dominic keep trying hammer the same point home whether it fits or not. Yes, I get that the mafia like the wall street people are losing money and confidence, and they are ruthless as well. But a little subtlety would go a long way.
I would say this about Gandolfini in this film, I kind of admire Dominik casting him and basically give him (and the audience) nothing to play with. Kind of gutsy to do that (though it does hurt the film, I think).
Well no – if Dominic’s theme is that times are tough all over, then he needed to go further with it. It’s only paid lip-service here which is why the spectre of the collapse feels more like background noise than a thesis. The Sopranos dealt with the idea better, so Dominic might have been better served to look to that for inspiration.
As for Gandolfini, I would have been all for him playing such a sad sack, if the fate of the sad sack wasn’t “Fuck it – he’s a mess, cut him loose”.
Wow, you disliked it even more then me! I actually didn’t mind the passive nature of Pitt and Gandolfini – I guess I felt it gave us a more “realisitic” look at a world that is normally pretty stylised on film. But I agree that the economic commentary, although potentially interesting, is ultimately out of place, and woefully heavy-handed.
A realistic look at a world that is pretty stylised? Were you in the gents during the slow-mo shootout?
Oh don’t get me wrong, I HATED the slow-mo shoot out. I meant more in terms of the dialogue and the behaviour of the characters. That’s why I liked the Gandolfini stuff. In real life, if you had a guy like that, you probably would just cut him lose.
Good point. However, as much as the reality is that someone like him would just stop getting their calls answered, in a film I want something more. Hell, I’d even settle for a scene where we see that he isn’t getting his calls answered.
Remember that scene in BOOGIE NIGHTS when Jack Horner meets Colenol James in jail? It needed something like that.
You’re right…Boogie Nights IS a much better film 😛
While I come out on the positive side for this film, I can understand the reasons why you didn’t like it. I agree with you on the hammering home of the financial/political message. I believe a variation in the delivery of the politics/economics subtext would have made the message feel less repetitive.
I believe the film is quite timely and provides a scary comparison of the mob and the economy and politics.
The mobsters in this film find themselves in a similar state as the economy – they have screwed each other over and have failed at the most simple of tasks and have hit new lows (much like many of the politicians). It seems everyone is out for themselves in pursuit of an ‘American Dream’ which isn’t really realistic any more.
I also love Richard Jenkins, so his presence on-screen elevated the film for me.
Looking forward to listening to the discussion on the upcoming podcast.
Richard Jenkins is pretty cool in this movie, even if he’s just spitballing ideas off Brad Pitt for most of the runtime.
I don’t entirely think the economy analogy works. The American economy tanked because the rich got greedy, started rigging the deck in their favour, and taking advantage of the working class beneath them. The gangsters in this film get messy because one wants to screw over another one who’s at an equal footing. If the bosses were building their empire to the detriment of their soldiers, you might be on to something.
I mentioned it in an earlier comment, but really, it just made me miss The Sopranos.
Ouch, I think in the short time that I have been stopping by The Matinee, this is the lowest score I have seen you give a film. One of my main handicaps when it comes to watching a film, is that I often miss the subtext, but here even I got this one; therefore it must have been very obvious and perhaps too obvious. I enjoyed the relationship between Pitt and Jenkins, in particular the financial restrictions being placed on Pitt. However this could have easily been achieved without the tv screens/radios on in every room. A simple small section of dialogue early on could have set this up and then off you go.
I actually think casting Gandolfini in this role was a real stroke of genius. I suspect that Dominik wanted us to see Tony Soprano sat there and then contrast this with the invincible and bullet proof T of old. I found this to be quite effective.
Heh – no, it’s not the lowest. Off the top of my head, I can think of a half-star ranking, along with a pair of zeroes.
We got into this on The Matineecast: Had the film used the speech at the beginning and the speech at the finale in a “bookend” capacity, it probably would have worked. As my guest Andrew said: “Are you trying to tell me mobsters drive around listening to NPR?”
Wow, you didn’t enjoy this much. I absolutely loved it and I’m pretty sure it will end up in my top 10 list this year. It was beautifully shot, the story was interesting and I loved the scenes with Gandolfini. Yeah, his character is a nobody now, but used to be an amazing hitman. Pitt’s character personally chose him to do the job and sees that in the end he has to do it himself. To me it shows that every great person (or country tying to the theme of the movie) will have their moment of downfall.
I can see what SOFTLY wanted to be, and even what it *might* be with a bit more finesse. For me though, the whole experience was a little hollow. I didn’t see it as a moment of downfall so much as a moment of sloppiness. This crime ring will weather this down economy, they just need to keep their employees in line while they weather the storm.