Killing so Softly

The most obvious point about this movie is that it stars Brad Pitt. The other thing is that it really wants to be a better movie than it is.

Some guys pull a stick up job on a card game joint, and the big people don't like this, so they call in Brad Pitt to come along and clean it up. Which basically means killing everyone involved....

...and that's about it. It's a "character piece", which means there is a lot of sitting around talking big and very little actually doing. And also not a lot of point to this. This movie is tied into the time of the financial crisis, and tries to compare what is happening at that level with the small world of these crooks, which is sledge hammered in at worst and at best... without that, there truly is no point to what is going on.

Andrew Dominik, writer and director, is very much in the style of Coen or Tarantino, only not as well. Probably that lack of point thing, I mentioned. Aside from Brad Pitt, he has some other big names to help out, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Richard Jenkins... and yet...

If you have some time on your hands, you could do worse, but then you could do better.

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