Killing Them Softly

I had such high hopes going into this movie. Brad Pitt starring and Andrew Dominik directing. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is my favorite movie and has been since I saw it in 2007. (If that seems random, Brad Pitt Starred in that and Andrew Dominik directed). But this movie just didn't meet my expectations.

With undertones of the Recession being shoved in your face at every scene and nothing really quite flowing, Killing Them Softly is about greed and the effect the recession has on Mob bosses and their employees. Interesting concept, but it comes off as everyone just being a whiny little bitch (excuse my French).

When three nobodies rob a mob controlled game and frame one of the card sharks for it, The mob bosses bring in an enforcer, played by Brad Pitt, to control the situation. And he does. But the entire time, everyone is just complaining about the recession and how it has affected times. But they're mob bosses in a non-Martin Scorsese gangster movie, so you don't care about them.

This is another case of a movie trying to be something that it's not. It couldn't decide what it wanted to be. It wanted to be a gangster movie but also have a deeper meaning, while also pointing out how bad President Bush was (We get it. He's the reason your life sucks, now move on!).

If this film had just been a gangster movie about a hit man hired to take out the idiots that knocked over the card game, it could have been great! But that wasn't enough.

This movie wasn't completely bad, though. It had great acting by everyone involved, and very good cinematography. Although, the writing and story left something to be desired.

My Grade: C

But, as always, form your own opinion. You may enjoy this movie more than I did.

ATTENTION! I WILL BE RELEASING THE NOMINATIONS FOR THE MIKEY AWARDS JANUARY 10th COINCIDING WITH THE ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS! I WILL POST THE WINNER ON FEBRUARY 24 DURING THE OSCARS!