Killing Them Softly

So let’s get this out the way from the off: in my opinion, Killing Them Softly (dir. Andrew Dominik) is the greatest gangster movie since Goodfellas came out way back in 1990. It's exciting, clever, funny, and very, very cool. Yes, again, I’m biased. I love Andrew Dominik’s previous work – however little of it there may be. Both completely different, yet both fully-formed and masterpieces in their own rights, Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford are among the best films of the last twenty years.

And so is Killing Them Softly. However, whilst the film has been by no means receiving bad reviews, it hasn’t been garnering the sort of praise that one (I) might have thought. Why? Well, there seem to be two main criticisms levelled against it.

1. We’ve seen this all before. Have we? Well, let’s think about this. Some reviews have suggested that Dominik is being perhaps a little too faithful to his sources in putting Killing Them Softly together. He certainly doesn’t help himself by having a few alumni from The Sopranos knocking around.

I expected this from Gandolfini but not you, Johnny... (don’t tell Gandolfini I said that). So here’s the deal: Dominik has shot the film brilliantly, edited it stylishly, and got a few actors who have been in gangster-related things before. Does that make it derivative? No. No, it doesn’t. This isn’t a Guy Ritchie film. This isn’t like a Guy Ritchie film; it is much, much more than that. Indeed, the fact that we might recognise a face or two might even serve a purpose: Dominik’s film is an endgame. The first time we see Gandolfini, he’s trudging his way wearily, blearily, and drunkenly through an airport. We’ve all seen The Sopranos. We’ve all seen Tony Soprano get what he wants. But this isn’t that show. Gandolfini, here, is a lonely drunk, constantly remembering better times and better women. Dominik’s film is The End for those gangsters. This is what happens when you live that life for too long. You get miserable, you get poor, you get ‘got’. There aren’t many films which (whilst still remaining exuberant, hilarious, and exciting) show us quite this far down the slope.

2. It has been suggested that Killing Them Softly is a little too ‘on the nose’, that it is a little less than subtle in its political commentary and its overall examination of the economic crisis.

Any criticism of the film for ‘bigness’ seems to me to be somewhat missing the point. It’s meant to be ‘big’, it’s meant to be brash. It’s part of the film’s confidence that it paints itself in such bright colours. There aren’t enough films with the arrogance to consider themselves so important. Yes, Dominik uses The Velvet Underground’s ‘Heroin’ in a scene in which two characters take heroin. No, that’s not a problem. It’s indicative of the film's construction of itself as an all-encompassing monster. The film may well be playing out the international financial crisis in the microcosm of organised crime, but it is still about the international financial crisis. If it was put together in any ‘smaller’ a way then it would lose its significance. To me, there just aren’t enough filmmakers with the swagger to call a film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, or use ‘The Man Comes Around’ when introducing its main character. To me, we need a few more filmmakers like Andrew Dominik in this world.