Killing Them Softly (2012)

When it's over, Killing Them Softly killed me quickly. Jackie Coogan (Brad Pitt) is called in to clean up the mess after an amateur robbery affects local mob business. There was way too much jabbering about trivial things between the characters that have nothing to do with the storyline. The inclusion of Bush and Obama speeches in the background also had nothing to do with the storyline. I struggled to grasp this film, to like it, to be open minded about it, but I just couldn't get past the slow pacing and irrelevant scenes. The characters were boring and one-dimensional, and I could care less whether they got whacked or not. The worse part about the film was the talk about characters and events that the viewer never sees. For example, the character of Dillon (Sam Shepard) was shown for less than two minutes in the very beginning and was mentioned throughout the film, obviously an important character since Jackie works for Dillon, but disappeared from the screen like a phantom. The fact that Dillon died should have been shown, not mentioned. There were no conclusive endings to two of the characters – Mickey (James Gandofini) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn), who both got plenty of screen time, then forgotten completely. There were no human qualities in the film. No love. No loyalty. No friendship. No sacrifice. No regrets. No nothing.

My rating: 1.5 out of 5