Killing Them Softly (2012)

After an illegal poker game (under mafia sanction) is robbed by two small time hoods (Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn), a hit man (Brad Pitt) is brought in to not only find out who robbed the game but to execute them. Based on the 1974 novel COGAN'S TRADE by George V. Higgins, the film tries too hard to be cool and what we end up with is a stylish but empty vessel. Andrew Dominik's last film ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD was one of the great American films of the last decade but fearing a sophomore stumble, I went in with lowered expectations. Alas, I should have lowered them more. A really disappointing film. Dominik has gussied up the film, bookending the film with Obama speeches, in an attempt to tie in the current economical situation in the U.S. with the film's cynical portrait of a corrupt America spawning the vermin who populate the film. No surprise, Pitt delivers another finely etched performance (no one else in the film matches him), too good for the movie because it exposes how rotten everything else is in it. Instead of being shocked or repelled by the violence like we would be in a Peckinpah film, Dominik lingers over it in slow motion from various angles until one wants to scream, "Enough already!". With Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins and Sam Shepard.