Killing Them Softly

Aussie director Andrew Dominik seems to enjoy exploring the dark underside of our world. He re teams with Brad Pitt to look at some more villains.

There has been much written and spoken about the nastiness of this film. Mostly that the men treat women really badly. While that is true, it is because of the world they live in. The men as depicted in this film are bad men. They do bad things. The steal, they kill and they take drugs. Not exactly the actions of nice people. While I am not condoning their behaviour, I'm just saying that it fits in with all their other unsavory behaviour. I think that is also part of the reason why people had trouble watching this film. We are exploring a dirty world with very dirty people so it is not going to be a very pleasant experience. Andrew Dominik does a brilliant job of making this film feel very authentic. All the elements from the script to costume and production design to bring this dirty world to life. These are also violent people and Andrew does not shy away from showing the horrific nature of the violence these people inflict. It is very brutal and not for the faint of heart.
I admire major movie stars who are not afraid to lower themselves and do some lower budget films. Brad Pitt's character of Jackie Coogan is possibly one of the nicer people amongst this group of nasty people. Brad plays it in a nicely cool and smooth way. Scoot McNairy is brilliant as one of the thieves Jackie is hunting down. He really seems at home with the crude dialogue he has to speak. He has a great sidekick in Aussie actor Ben Mendelsohn who is brilliant as the drug addict Russell. You really think he could have taken drugs to play the role. James Gandolfini pretty much plays Tony Soprano but is good at it. Ray Liota is also very effective as a hapless gangster.
This is a very unpleasant film and not for everyone. But if you like a simple story well told that is different to the glossy films you normally see then you should seek this out.