‘Killing Them Softly’

Killing Them Softly

Director: Andrew Dominik

Language: English

Running Time: 97 min

Killing Them Softly is the third film from writer/director Andrew Dominik and his first since the critically lauded yet largely (and criminally) unseen, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. Once again, Dominik teams up with Brad Pitt (who also produces) for another story of lawless, but ultimately inept, individuals leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.

The time and place have shifted from 19^th century Missouri to 2008 in recession stricken New Orleans. The story now focuses on mob enforcer and hitman, Jackie Cogan (Pitt), who is sent to investigate after a mob-protected poker game is the victim of a heist. Cogan is more hands off than the violent, headline grabbing antics of Jesse James, preferring instead to kill from a distance so as not to experience his victims’ final moments (a method he describes as “killing them softly”, hence the title of the film).

With this film, the feeling of Americana seems far more melancholy than it was in The Assassination… The glazed eyes and the muttered jokes of the tired, old mobsters makes them appear far less gung ho than the free and wild criminals that populated the James gang. These criminals don’t trust each other because trust is something that has long since been beaten out of them by the harshness of their profession. As Cogan says towards the end of the trailer, “I’m in America, and in America you’re on your own”.  Killing Them Softly will be showing at the Cornerhouse Cinema from the 21st of September.