Although there is some craft in “Killing Them Softly,” the
many amoral characters do too much talking for me to find them engaging and
Director Andrew Dominik’s over-riding metaphor is distracting. Dominik uses a
George Higgins novel to launch a familiar saga about a pair of low-IQ lowlifes
(Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn) who think they’re smart enough to rob some
heavy dudes who play in a poker game hosted by the slightly less moronic Markie
(Ray Liotta). Brad Pitt, giving an unlikeable cool-guy performance, is the
cruelly efficient hit man who gets called in to clean up the miss by administering
punishment for all involved. That’s the story.
However, Dominik sees his narrative as a metaphor for the
2008 financial crisis and the election of Barack Obama. There’s an Obama speech
in the opening seconds and a shot of Obama and John McCain billboards at the
movie progresses. Plus there’s always a video or audio clip of Obama or George
W. Bush in the background and at the end, Pitt’s big speech ties politics to
crime. The problem with Dominik’s metaphor is it wasn’t just one person who
needed to have his brains splattered in the super slo-mo of Dominik’s most
visually captivating scene. It was the entire crazy mortgage system that was
broken, from lenders to people who bought more house than they could afford to
regulators who encouraged them. So I ask you, does the metaphor even work? “Killing
Them Softly” is trying too hard to be more than a story set in the world of
mobsters, junkies and lowlifes. 12/10/12
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