Killing Them Softly (2012)
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.
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.
liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 116,914
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
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Cast
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Brad Pitt
Jackie -
Scoot McNairy
Frankie -
Ben Mendelsohn
Russell -
James Gandolfini
Mickey -
Richard Jenkins
Driver -
Vincent Curatola
Johnny Amato -
Ray Liotta
Markie Trattman -
Trevor Long
Steve Caprio -
Max Casella
Barry Caprio -
Sam Shepard
Dillon -
Slaine Jenkins
Kenny Gill -
Linara Washington
Hooker -
Ross Brodar
Poker Guy -
Wade Allen
Business Suit Agent -
Christopher Berry
Cab Driver Agent -
Kenneth Brown Jr.
Security Force Agent -
Mustafa Harris
Bartender #1 -
Dared Wright
Waiter -
John McConnell
Bartender #2 -
Bryan Billingsley
Bar Patron #1 -
Shannon Brewer
Bar Patron #2 -
Roger L. Pfeiffer
Bar Patron #3 -
Joe Chrest
Business Suit Agent
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Killing Them Softly Trailer & Photos
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.
Top CriticLike 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.
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.
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.
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.
Dominik ... expertly captures the flavor of his Higgins source material.
Ain't nothin' new about it, but it's a cool 97 minutes of seedy amusement.
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.
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.
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.
Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly is a potent and miraculously-shot film that captures America's recent financial collapse through a criminal lens.
A noir-ish crime drama with a brain, and despite its flaws and inconsistencies, a film worth seeing. Dominik remains a filmmaker to watch.
Complex and problematic in a rather wonderful way, Killing Them Softly has flaws more interesting than some film's perfections.
Brad Pitt excels amongst an incredible ensemble cast in this gritty crime thriller.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Good actors and unimpeachable source material hampered by faulty chatter, leading to thumb-twiddling.
Director Andrew Dominik controls the clock
Weary and familiar foray in to gangster turf
It's a rollercoaster: long talky tete a tetes, punctuated with shocking violence (both of which are masterfully presented).
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
The completely obvious comparison to the mobster world and our American economic system is a welcome, straight-forward surprise for storytelling.
The pace is deliberate, yet that simmering sociopolitical undercurrent gives Killing Them Softly more weight than its rather conventional concept might suggest.
Jackie Cogan understands his fate in a way that the other smart guys don't quite, an understanding that makes him seem somehow smarter.
Audience Reviews for Killing Them Softly
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Mickey: I don't take orders from you!
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- Jackie: What's the problem?
- Driver: It's murder and they're squeamish.
- Jackie: Oh, for fuck's sake! Who's running things?
- 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.
- Jackie: What is it, a committee?
- Driver: Total corporate mentality!
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- Jackie: America is not a country. It's just a business. Now pay me.
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- 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.
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- 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!
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- Jackie: I live here in America. And in America, you're on your own.
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| This superb film has been completely misunderstood! | 4 months ago | 45 |
| The thing that ruined it for me | 6 months ago | 36 |
| Killing them Softly is a waste of 90 minutes of your life. | 29 days ago | 29 |
| A stunningly bad piece of crap | 4 months ago | 15 |
| Moviedex's Review | 6 months ago | 10 |
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Foreign Titles
- Killing Them Softly (DE)
- Killing Them Softly (UK)
