Killing Them Softly:
When two amateur thieves rob a mob bosses' poker game, the mob hires hitman Dylan to take them and anyone else involved out. But when Dylan can't pull the job due to illness, he calls his his fellow hitman Cogan, a mysterious, cold, professional, menacing, calculating, and all around brutal man with very little morality and a high sense of cynicism. As the plot thickens, Cogan must betray and befriend individuals to get the job done. Now, the film is beautifully shot and scored (with 70's soft rock as the soundtrack), certain scenes in slow-motion and several camera angles are very clever. Brad Pitt, although appearing 20 minutes into the film, is remarkable as Cogan, who reminds me of Ryan Gosling's character in Drive. But, his character is far too cold, distant, cynical, and overall unrelatable to really care about. In fact, the film really goes nowhere, and overall is anti-climactic and leaves you feeling empty inside. People are saying this is the great crime movie (like Drive) to kick-start the crime genre, which has been a bit stale in the past few years. But really, I miss films like The Departed and Gangs of New York, films that were brutal and cold, like this film, but had a three act-structure, and had characters, although questionable and sometimes outright diabolical, that still were very entertaining, and made you feel like you really had a great experience after you left the theater. Characters that you coud even relate to or care for. This film sort of lacks that. James Gandolfini (a veteran of the crime and gangster genre, having appeared in True Romance and The Sopranos) makes a brief appearance as this washed-up hitman whose only cares are booze and hookers. In fact, his role really goes nowhere other than to say "Hey, James Gandolfini's in this movie, see it!" Richard Jenkins (an underrated actor from HBO's Six Feet Under and Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods) plays Driver, a mob representative, who, again, has a character who goes nowhere, and is just there to say "Hey, Richard Jenkins is in this movie!" Other actors who give some good performances are Ray Liotta, who is a great mob movie actor, Ben Mendelsohn (Daggett from The Dark Knight Rises), and Scoot McNairy. The movie also takes place in 2008, but has a very 70's tone to it, and has a weird political undertone. Overall, Killing Them Softly is a good crime movie, but it's devoid of any real structure, climax, relatable characters, action, and really just leaves you empty and cold, like the character of Cogan himself. 3/5 stars.
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