Review: Killing Them Softly (2012) is a strong crime drama slightly bogged down by overly explicit subtext.

Killing Them Softly

2012
95 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly has, from a conversational standpoint, one of the finest screenplays of the last few years.  It is a relatively low-key crime drama, filled with crusty character actors doing chewy character turns.  But more importantly, certainly more importantly than its sledgehammer subtext (more on that later), it is an absolute revelation in terms of the art of cinematic conversation.  The film is rich with authentic dialogue and thoughtful discussion, both of the film's issues and of matters related merely to character.  Frankly most of the film involves two or three characters conversing with each other, so it's a good thing the dialogue is so darn good.  When the film stays within its own world, it is a top-notch entry in its sub-genre.  Its only real fault is in trying too hard to achieve topicality and relevance, to the point where the subtext becomes explicit text.

Trailer Analysis: Killing Them Softly gets a fine trailer. Why it's utter lack of women is a *good* thing...

This is a terrific trailer for what is allegedly a terrific little crime drama. What sticks out is the utter lack of women in the film.  I'd argue that it's a net positive in this case.  I've long argued that I'd rather see certain movies go completely without women that shoe-horn a random pretty girl (often played by an actress who should be getting better roles) in order to provide a token romantic subplot and/or an easy way to make one low-life more sympathetic than another (Ryan Gosling has a crush on Cary Mulligan in Drive, which makes him the 'hero' by default).  Obviously the best case scenario would be actually having well-written female characters that aren't love interests, even in macho crime pictures like this (why not give James Gandolfini's part to Melissa Leo?).  But barring that, I'd much prefer to see a 'strictly business' sausage fest versus something like (random example) The Killer Elite which wastes a good twenty minutes of an already overlong movie attempting to shoe-horn in Jason Statham's ultimately pointless relationship with Yvonne Strahovski (who on TV's Chuck was a lead rather than 'the girl').  Anyway, Killing Them Softly opens on October 19th, 2012.  As always, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson