Opening

86% Captain Phillips Oct 11
31% Machete Kills Oct 11
—— Haunt Oct 11
41% All the Boys Love Mandy Lane Oct 11
—— Romeo and Juliet Oct 11
67% Escape From Tomorrow Oct 11
—— CBGB Oct 11
—— The Inevitable Defeat Of Mister And Pete Oct 11
—— Zero Charisma Oct 11
—— Where the Devil Hides Oct 11

Top Box Office

97% Gravity $55.8M
59% Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 $21.0M
8% Runner Runner $7.7M
81% Prisoners $5.7M
88% Rush $4.5M
82% Don Jon $4.2M
18% Baggage Claim $4.1M
35% Insidious: Chapter 2 $3.9M
63% Pulling Strings $2.5M
95% Enough Said $2.2M
56% Instructions Not Included $1.8M
47% We're The Millers $1.6M
33% The Family $1.5M
73% Lee Daniels' The Butler $1.2M
—— Grace Unplugged $1.0M
78% Metallica Through the Never $0.7M
60% Riddick $0.5M
5% Battle of the Year $0.5M
75% Despicable Me 2 $0.5M
38% Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters $0.4M

Coming Soon

78% Kill Your Darlings Oct 16
—— Carrie Oct 18
—— Escape Plan Oct 18
35% The Fifth Estate Oct 18
97% 12 Years a Slave Oct 18
100% All Is Lost Oct 18
75% Haunter Oct 18
—— Paradise Oct 18

Killing Them Softly (2012)

tomatometer

75

Average Rating: 6.9/10
Reviews Counted: 210
Fresh: 157 | Rotten: 53

Killing Them Softly is a darkly comic, visceral thriller that doubles as a cautionary tale on capitalism, whose message is delivered with sledgehammer force.

63

Average Rating: 6.6/10
Critic Reviews: 46
Fresh: 29 | Rotten: 17

Killing Them Softly is a darkly comic, visceral thriller that doubles as a cautionary tale on capitalism, whose message is delivered with sledgehammer force.

audience

44

liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 116,914

My Rating

Movie Info

Three dumb guys who think they're smart rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse. Brad Pitt plays the enforcer hired to track them down and restore order. Killing Them Softly also features Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, and Vincent Curatola. Max Casella, Trevor Long, Slaine and Sam Shepard also make appearances. -- (C) Weinstein

R,

Drama, Mystery & Suspense, Comedy

Mar 26, 2013

$15.0M

The Weinstein Co. - Official Site External Icon

Watch It Now

Cast

ADVERTISEMENT

All Critics (210) | Top Critics (46) | Fresh (157) | Rotten (53) | DVD (1)

'Killing Them Softly' collapses under the crushing weight of the director's narcissism.

December 4, 2012 Full Review Source: Richard Roeper.com
Richard Roeper.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Like its source material, the movie is stylish, profane, intelligent, and eminently diverting. But as much as it is a delight that Dominik has disinterred Higgins's work, it is a mild disappointment that the result is not more substantial.

November 30, 2012 Full Review Source: The Atlantic
The Atlantic
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Trading in pleasures of a deliberately rarefied sort, writer-director Andrew Dominik's talky, character-rich genre piece largely short-circuits thrills to sketch a grimly funny portrait of thugs taking care of business, in every rotten sense of the word.

November 30, 2012 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Ultimately, as crafted as Killing Them Softly is, it's less satisfying than either The Sopranos or Goodfellas. Still, Dominik and his cast cruise some very mean streets indeed.

November 30, 2012 Full Review Source: Denver Post
Denver Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The dialogue is sharp and so are the performances. Andrew Dominik directed this neo-noir in a low-key comic style that's alternately gritty and fancy. The gritty stuff is best.

November 30, 2012 Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor
Christian Science Monitor
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Dominik ... expertly captures the flavor of his Higgins source material.

November 30, 2012 Full Review Source: Seattle Times
Seattle Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Ain't nothin' new about it, but it's a cool 97 minutes of seedy amusement.

July 27, 2013 Full Review Source: EricDSnider.com
EricDSnider.com

Dominik wears his nihilism as a badge, but that's not what it is at all: It's a crutch, and an awfully flimsy one.

June 23, 2013 Full Review Source: Deadspin
Deadspin

It's a middling gangster film, but belabored with too much Sturm und Drang, particularly in banging over the audience's head the constant reminders of the fiscal cliff.

June 6, 2013 Full Review Source: Film Threat
Film Threat

Andrew Dominik's follow-up to 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' too often fails to engage with its uneven mix of guns and gab.

May 13, 2013 Full Review Source: The Patriot Ledger
The Patriot Ledger

Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly is a potent and miraculously-shot film that captures America's recent financial collapse through a criminal lens.

March 24, 2013 Full Review Source: We Got This Covered
We Got This Covered

A noir-ish crime drama with a brain, and despite its flaws and inconsistencies, a film worth seeing. Dominik remains a filmmaker to watch.

March 21, 2013 Full Review Source: Cinemania

Complex and problematic in a rather wonderful way, Killing Them Softly has flaws more interesting than some film's perfections.

March 4, 2013 Full Review Source: Film4

Brad Pitt excels amongst an incredible ensemble cast in this gritty crime thriller.

March 3, 2013 Full Review Source: Concrete Playground
Concrete Playground

There are many cinematic cardinal sins, but the latest film from Aussie director Andrew Dominik commits two of the big ones - Don't Be Boring and Don't Waste A Great Cast.

February 12, 2013 Full Review Source: The Standard

A top-notch, viscerally powerfully mobster movie with a view of free-market enterprise as practiced at its most harrowingly basic, last-man-standing level.

February 4, 2013 Full Review Source: American Profile
American Profile

Australian director Andrew Dominik mixes conventional mobster mayhem with an unconventional take on gangsters caught up in the Great Recession. And with Brad Pitt as his ideologically enraged male muse hitman, as if wandering in from Occupy Wall Street.

January 5, 2013 Full Review Source: WBAI Radio
WBAI Radio

While Dominik flourishes when it comes to the picture's excessive violence, he seems to be unable to balance those sequences with the drawn-out scenes of dialogue, which, while delivered nicely, kill any momentum the film might have had.

January 4, 2013 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Good actors and unimpeachable source material hampered by faulty chatter, leading to thumb-twiddling.

December 20, 2012 Full Review Source: East Bay Express
East Bay Express

Director Andrew Dominik controls the clock

December 14, 2012 Full Review Source: Movie Habit
Movie Habit

Weary and familiar foray in to gangster turf

December 14, 2012 Full Review Source: Movie Habit
Movie Habit

It's a rollercoaster: long talky tete a tetes, punctuated with shocking violence (both of which are masterfully presented).

December 12, 2012 Full Review Source: StaciWilson.com
StaciWilson.com

Killing Them Softly finds its own rhythm and eventually its own way of building dread, punctuated by bravura cinematic moments that won't soon be forgotten

December 12, 2012 Full Review Source: Scene-Stealers.com
Scene-Stealers.com

The completely obvious comparison to the mobster world and our American economic system is a welcome, straight-forward surprise for storytelling.

December 11, 2012 Full Review Source: The Scorecard Review
The Scorecard Review

The pace is deliberate, yet that simmering sociopolitical undercurrent gives Killing Them Softly more weight than its rather conventional concept might suggest.

December 10, 2012 Full Review Source: Cinemalogue.com
Cinemalogue.com

Jackie Cogan understands his fate in a way that the other smart guys don't quite, an understanding that makes him seem somehow smarter.

December 10, 2012 Full Review Source: PopPolitics.com
PopPolitics.com

Audience Reviews for Killing Them Softly

With the arsenal of stars in this movie you would think it would be a homerun, well it's not. Something was off about it, I think it was the lack of substance; too much talk and not enough walk. It needed more action and grit in my opinion. So because of that, Killing Them Softly is an alright movie at best.
December 28, 2012
Eric Alvarez

Super Reviewer

It's not as gritty as Scorsese, nor pretty as Tarantino, but it does feature some excellent conversations between Brad Pitt and (1) Richard Jenkins and (2) James Gandolfini and it's interestingly punctuated by Obama's 2008 election speeches. The plot around these scenes is predictably plain, though, and as a result I found the whole thing a bit boring. While Dominik's last film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, was slow-moving, it was engaging nonetheless; what we have here is a run-of-the-mill gangster movie, its economic crisis allegory notwithstanding. A letdown from this director, we've already seen better from him.
March 18, 2013
danperry17

Super Reviewer

    1. Mickey: I don't take orders from you!
    – Submitted by Kia M (8 months ago)
    1. Jackie: What's the problem?
    2. Driver: It's murder and they're squeamish.
    3. Jackie: Oh, for fuck's sake! Who's running things?
    4. Driver: You have no idea! No decision makers. I gotta take them by the hand and I gotta walk them slowly through it like they're retarded children.
    5. Jackie: What is it, a committee?
    6. Driver: Total corporate mentality!
    – Submitted by Marina P (8 months ago)
    1. Jackie: America is not a country. It's just a business. Now pay me.
    – Submitted by Jorge C (9 months ago)
    1. Jackie: Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America. And in America, you're on your own. America is not a country. It's just a business. Now pay me.
    – Submitted by Jorge C (9 months ago)
    1. Jackie: This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community? Don't make me laugh! I'm livin in America, and in America you're on your own. America's not a country, it's just a buisness... now fuckin pay me!
    – Submitted by Rich H (10 months ago)
    1. Jackie: I live here in America. And in America, you're on your own.
    – Submitted by Moe J (10 months ago)
View all quotes (10)

What's Hot On RT

The Hobbit
The Hobbit

New Desolation of Smaug trailer!

Diana Trailer
Diana Trailer

Naomi Watts is Princess Di

RT on DVD & Blu-Ray
RT on DVD & Blu-Ray

The Hangover 3, The Purge, and More

<em>The Nut Job</em>
The Nut Job

Trailer for a squirrely heist flick

Primetime Preview
Primetime Preview

See what's on TV tonight

Latest News on Killing Them Softly

March 26, 2013:
RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: Lincoln and Killing Them Softly
This week on home video, we've got an Oscar winner and another Oscar nominee, a comedy flop, a...
December 2, 2012:
Box Office Guru Wrapup: Twilight Threepeats at No. 1
The annual post-turkey blues kicked in as spending at the North American box office dropped by half...
November 30, 2012:
Red Carpet Roundup for Killing Them Softly
The best pictures from the premiere of Brad Pitt's Killing Them Softly.

Foreign Titles

  • Killing Them Softly (DE)
  • Killing Them Softly (UK)
Help | About | Jobs | Critics Submission | Press | API | Licensing | Mobile