A Review of "Killing Them Softly"

The wife had her company Christmas party last night and she and her co-workers wanted to make a girls night out of it so I convinced my good buddy Rob to come out for a drink and take in a guy movie. We decided on Killing Them Softly. One of the critics whose opinion I use to trust, Movie Bob,  gave it an okay review plus usually a gangster movie is a safe bet. Sadly, I haven't experienced such a long boring 97 minutes in quite some time.

Once upon a time I had dreams of working in the Film Industry and use to be a Film Major. As a result, I made my share of avant-garde short films and attended the screening of many classics. Film is an art and can be a powerful effective medium for making a statement. However, if you are making a feature length film  story and character development should not be reduced to background noise for your statement and that is were Killing Them Softly failed. 

In the days of Orson Wells and Hitchcock, movies often made all sorts of hidden subtle statements while still  ensuring the characters were flushed up and story was well told. The key word there is 'subtle'. Killing Them Softly was not subtle and its social statement was in your face to the point that the story and characters become fluff. I can't help but wonder if that's a reflection of our current society and growing lack of any attention span were nothing can be subtle and everything has to be shocking. Hey maybe that was the subtle messages but I doubt it.

Now having trashed the movie I will say I desperately wanted to like it. Brad Pitt was excellent as usual: he's one of those actors I want to dislike because of the media attention and Jolie factor but he proves his value in most movies. In addition, there sparks of great dialogue and had some unique well executed visual elements. Alas it just wasn't enough and I found myself bored and relieved when the movie can to a close. 

I have to comment on the James Gandolfini character, Mickey. This character without a doubt had the most character development in the movie and could have been interesting  Unfortunately, his character lent nothing to the story and he just disappeared mid movie and I was pissed to realize Mickey was there for no reason other than making a tragic statement and had nothing to do with the story progression. Even this would have been fine if the character hadn't gotten the bulk of screen time. 

In short, everyone in the audience seemed disappointed where one post movie comment was if that had more than a $20k budget it was to much. With that in mind I would give it may be 2 star out of 5 stars at best.