KILLING THEM SOFTLY

Set in the near past (specifically the precipice of the 2008 elections) and often hammering a little too hard on the financial hole the nation found itself in, KILLING THEM SOFTLY presents us with a handful of petty criminals as stand-ins for the nation as a whole. If you paired it with SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, another of my favorites from this past year, you would get a pretty accurate snapshot of where America’s headspace is at these days. Violent and desperate, funny and sad, openly greedy while still compassionate to a known sociopath. America. The perfect dog-napping double feature, both films are also follow-ups to past years favorites, namely the pitch perfect IN BRUGES from Martin McDonagh and the hauntingly beautiful THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD by Andrew Dominik. KILLING THEM SOFTLY is equally beautiful, albeit in a much more grubby, 1970s-tinted-sunglasses fashion, often lavishing gorgeous attention on horrific segments.

I’ll be spoiling it softly after the jump.

I assume the largest problem most people have had with this film (though considered a bomb, it is one that I would wager will only grow in reputation as the years pass) is the fact that the ad campaign focused only on Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini and Ray Liotta, while the actual leads of the film are the small-timer Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and his junkie partner Russell (Ben Mendelsohn). They are caught up in small crimes and schemes, but there is something bigger on their minds. Just as a senator from Illinois is filling the air with talk of hope and change, so too is dry cleaner Johnny “Squirrel” Amato (Vincent Curatola) selling Frankie on the thought that a decent chunk of money stolen in the right way will elevate him above his current concerns. Squirrel has the idea to rob a local mafia sponsored card game that has been hit before and if hit again would have a likely target in game runner Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), who, when drunk, freely admitted to the previous robbing of his own game. Frankie is in a bad enough spot to carry this plan out, but he needs a partner that the Squirrel approves of, and Russell is not that. Once the Squirrel is talked into using the perpetually sweating antagonistic Australian junkie that is Russell, the robbery can occur, but stealing money from the mob will always have consequences, and that equal and opposite reaction comes in the form of Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt).

 

 

The plot is fairly straightforward. This is not a complaint, just shorthand that will get me out of anymore synopsizing. What is notable is the presentation of a criminal organization as a failing corporation. We see some of the more expected boss-types, but only in flashbacks to Trattman’s previous transgression. He gets tossed around by Dillon (Sam Shepard, who I honestly thought was Peter Fonda until the end credits) who is referred to throughout but never seen again. What we see of the organization is represented by Richard Jenkins, who has to take all of Cogan’s requests for money or additional help up the ladder, with an eye firmly fixed on the bottom line. Mafia leadership presented as passive aggressive fussy accountancy.

 

 

Cogan can easily take care of the whole affair, but would rather avoid as much messiness as possible. He specializes in this kind of thing, and has been through it all before, but higher-ups would rather do it their way. He argues that Trattman (whose name always sounds like ‘trapped man’ when said onscreen, which he very much is) should just be killed, because that’s where this is all headed anyway. You can’t let a guy be perceived as stealing from you twice, even if you know he only stole from you once. But the powers-that-be want him beaten. Then later they want him killed. Cogan’s affection for Trattman is such that he wants to spare a man a beating and just humanely murder him. This odd conception of compassion is what leads Cogan to contract out the hit on Squirrel. He could easily do it himself, but he knows Squirrel, and would rather avoid the pleading that comes with killing someone who you know. So he brings in Mickey (James Gandolfini), a heavy hitter from his past. But Mickey has not aged well, and being in the midst of a divorce has brought on a rough streak of morose morning drinking and constant whoring that leaves little time to do his work. Gandolfini is still kind of a secret weapon as an actor; everyone who watched ‘The Sopranos’ knows that he is magnificent, but he still manages to have unplumbed depths, and he gets to show some underutilized sides here. The casting of this film is an odd mix of the expected in unusual combinations -- there are many ‘Sopranos’ alumni (Gandolfini, Curatola and Max Casella, not to mention Henry Hill himself) but they don’t get to share any time onscreen.

 

 

Outside of the lead characters being two guys the ads didn’t bother to mention, I would also think that dialogue this oblique can prove unpopular to some moviegoers. There is a ton of back story given in this film, but not always in obvious ways, and often in a mumbled line or thrown away phrase. There is little underlining of important information, which is perhaps why the political/economic parallels sometimes feel a bit heavy. When so much of the film is a fine instrument, the occasional blunt object stands out all the more. This is also true of the song selection. With some of the best sound design I’ve ever heard (the beating of Mark Trattman uses real innovation to make it sound as brutal as it looks) there are songs that are so on the nose they belong in a student film. When things are going good, you do not play “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” when a character shoots heroin, you do not play “Heroin.”

 

This is what has become of America, although some of Pitt’s final lines effectively take out any rosy nostalgia for what this country was (and what a final scene. This is my favorite kind of ending, and each time the gut-punch of it left me breathless). You scrape in a broken, unnamed city to barely make a living in a home so prefabricated it has a barcode on its side. You answer to accountants that you could easily out-muscle but not out-scheme. You contract out labor to specialists who don’t see the job through but are valued higher than yourself. You count your money in the men’s room of a rundown tavern and hope it’s all there. And if you’re lucky, you don’t see it coming -- you just end up splattered across the interior of a stolen Buick Skylark in another anonymous parking structure.