There's an indelible cast of sleazeballs who populate this dark tale, written and directed by Andrew Dominik and based on George V. Pitt may be the rare thug who discourses on political philosophy (among other things) as the film offers a critique of American capitalism.īut other elements make a stronger impression than its disenfranchised nihilist sentiments. It's a cynical philosophy that underlies this particularly seamy swath of society. I'm living in America, and in America you're on your own.' 'This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community. Pitt's Jackie, suddenly a political scholar, dismisses 'the myth created by Thomas Jefferson' and scoffs at the notion of an American collective. Obama's soaring pledge to reclaim the American dream fills the silence of the bar.

The pair meet at a bar after a string of murders following a heist at a Mob-controlled poker game. He expounds further in a key meeting with Richard Jenkins, in a wonderfully nuanced role as a Mob lawyer who doesn't get his hands dirty. The story is played against the backdrop of the 2008 economic collapse and opens with President Obama's voiceover message of hope eerily contrasted by a lone guy walking through a desolate trash-strewn corner of an anonymous American city.Ī clever thriller (*** out of four rated R opening Friday nationwide) with a particularly meaty performance by Brad Pitt, it posits a simple theory, as expressed by Pitt's menacing Mob enforcer, Jackie: 'America's not a country. Watch Video: Trailer: 'Killing Them Softly'Īs Wall Street melts down, so does the small-time gangster empire in Killing Them Softly.

Killing them softly movie cast