It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse. Killing Them Softly completely wastes a great cast of talented actors such as Ray Liotta and the late James Gandolfini in a film that is simply boring and quite hollow to even enjoy it properly. The action wasn't anything special and the 3 robbers weren't even remotely interesting to at least root them for a little bit at least. The perfomances were also pretty far from being any sort of good as well. (0/10)

The movie's poster says it all: a pair of shades reflecting the American flag, and a gun where the nose and mouth would be. In Killing Them Softly, playing today at the Cannes Film Festival and opening in the U.S. September 21, screenwriter-director Andrew Dominik wants you to know that the underworld is our world, with the same top-dog-eats-little-dog amorality, just expressed with naked ruthlessness. "This isn't a country, this is America. And America is a business."It's September 2008, at the national intersection of Obama-McCain Campaign and Lehman Brothers Meltdown, and the speaker is Jackie Cogan. Incarnated by Brad Pitt as a smart, supercool enforcer of gangland and corporate priorities, he is the criminal-industrial complex's own Terminator, a machine as sleek, functional and unerring as his .44. Sometimes he kills guys, other times he hires a guy to kill a guy, stressing to the prospective hitman (The Sopranos' James Gandolfini) that, "In this economy, 15 thousand dollars sounds pretty good for two days' work." But Cogan's not in charge; he takes orders from, and haggles over fees with, the taciturn lawyer (Richard Jenkins) who represents various Messrs. Big. You could call Cogan the underworld equivalent of a powerful but mid-level Wall Street sharpie, or a lobbyist for an oil company, doing the dirty work for mysterious master manipulators.Set in South Boston but shot in Louisiana, perhaps so Pitt could go home for dinner, this updated adaptation of George V. Higgins' 1974 crime novel Cogan's Trade reunites the star with the Australian director who boosted Pitt's indie cred with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a critically praised renegade Western that audiences shunned.The new movie has Dominik running for cover in a genre film - a cautious, subpar grafting of the immortal Pulp Fiction - with art-house pretensions: a pallid palette, a doctrinaire left-wing take on American mores, the application of anachronistic tunes (Ketty Lester's "Love Letters" from the '60s, Cliff Edwards' "Paper Moon" from the '30s) to underline murders, and way too much faith in the extemporaneous skills of its actors. At times you might swear you're looking at the film's outtake reel, or a rehearsal video of infertile improvs. Despite enough pummeling to flatten Rocky Balboa in all six movies, the only thing that truly rewards your attendance is Pitt in another effortless star performance. Fresh from his 2011 trifecta of The Tree of Life, Moneyball and Happy Feet Two, he shows again how to elevate a film with skill, charisma and no sweat.When a high-stakes card game under mob protection gets raided by two outsiders, Cogan is charged with finding and extinguishing the perps. Suspicion falls on the card game's manager, Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), who was thought to have fleeced his own game once before. But the scam's real "brains" - a term to be used loosely in a movie where virtually everyone but Cogan is a depressive alcoholic, a brain-addled junkie or an idiot - is one John "The Squirrel" Amato (another Sopranos veteran, Vincent Curatola, who played Johnny Sack; nice to see him alive again, for a while). Calculating that Markie would be fingered for a second heist, The Squirrel has engaged the services of two ex-cons, Frankie (Scott McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn, from Animal Kingdom). It is hardly a SPOILER to note that none of the aforementioned will survive to the closing credits. In charge and at ease with lowlife losers and pricey attorneys, Cogan gets the full star treatment: when he shuts (does not slam) a car door, the whole vehicle quakes, and the camera too, as if in jellied awe. He's inside the mob and outside, above it, telling Frankie, "Very few guys know me"; Angels of Death do not socialize. Cogan's life beyond his profession is unexplored; he is his job. And, he confesses, he doesn't much care for some of the particulars. In their moments before the fatal gunshot, Cogan says, victims "get touchy-feely. Emotional, not fun, lot of fuss. They cry, they plead, they beg, they piss themselves, they call for their mothers. It's embarrassing. I like to kill them softly, from a distance, not close enough for feelings - don't like feelings, don't want to think about 'em."What Killing Them Softly thinks about - and shows with both relish and ketchup - is the impact and etiquette of criminal brutality. Cogan finds one of his marks at a stoplight: a super slo-mo of the cocked gun, the sailing bullet, the crimson geysering from the back of the victim's head. When another man is shot, the top of his skull comes off like a cheap toupee. Markie's mauling at the fists of two thugs hired by Cogan is a bloody marvel of sadism and exaggerated sound effects. But wait, did we say etiquette? Sure: Toward the end of his beating, Markie breaks a cardinal crime rule: You don't cough up blood chunks on your assailant's shoes. That gets him an extra few kicks in the face.In this all-male milieu - except for a call girl who gets a few lines, no woman speaks - and with Higgins' salty, purposeful dialogue largely reduced to freakin' this and fuggin' that, reputation is more important than reality. "It's not what you been doin'," Cogan tells Frankie, "it's what guys think you been doin'." What most of them (aside from Cogan) are doing is talking about old crimes.In one terrific vignette, Russell recalls a dognapping caper: he'd steal expensive pooches and take them to Florida for resale. His accomplice Kenny (the single-named actor Slaine) needs to dispose of their hot car, so he puts a lighted rag in the gas tank. No worries, done it a million times. The car explodes, zooms backward and runs over Kenny - all in one shot. It's a sight gag whose violence and elegance are worthy of a Chuck Jones Road Runner cartoon, or an early episode of South Park ("Oh my God, they killed Kenny!"). For a guy to commit a crime with a showman's aplomb, then get totaled by his own incompetence: that's a sour vision of America worth cherishing.

I can understand why a lot of people don't like this movie, it's wordy like "Sports Night" or "The West Wing" and the wordiness often seems pointless. A lot of people don't like the late George V. Higgins' books and this is based on "Cogan's Trade". All of his books are wordy and his characters are complex people. Like in real life there's often a fine line between good and bad and there's often many shades of gray. Heck, Higgins is the only male fiction writer (I actually read very little fiction) who can spend a half page describing what a character if wearing or the decor of their home. I'd almost bet that every coat worn by any of his characters has a brand mentioned.While the stories are often complex, and the resolution not always clear, I've always found his books engrossing. Everyone in them is a politician, a cop, a crook (sometimes simultaneously) or some type of public figure. Almost all take place in New England which is mostly where he lived and practiced law. Maybe because I have a pretty active imagination but I swear I can "hear" the different accents in his characters; an Irish guy who grew up in "Southie" regardless of his station in life "sounds" different that a 10th generation banker who sails his 50 foot sailboat and vacations in the Caribbean.I feel that in "A Choice of Enemies" he gave the best description I've ever read or heard of how "practical" everyday politics operates, or should. That is a book that I've recommended to a dozen or so people and only two of them ever read it, one of them after quitting after 25 or so pages and starting again 8 months later.The only other book of Higgins that was made into a movie was "The Friends of Eddie Coyle", his first novel, which starred Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle. Although I haven't watched it in years I remember it being more straight up story telling and a "cleaner" crime drama. I first heard of Higgins when in about 1974 Playboy Magazine excerpted "The Diggers Game". Being 26 and in the military a lot of my friends and I read Playboy. In discussing this there were multiple interpretations of what ultimately happened at the end of it.I enjoy Higgins' way with words and I've adopted several of his phrases into my lexicon. Describing a character's sailboat; "it wasn't small but it wasn't real big either. It would sleep six, f**k four or fight two". If you've ever had a fight with a spouse on a driving or flying trip you'll know how small that is. Another favorite is about the difference between the FBI and other cops; "Nah, we're not the Mounties. We not only get our man but his brother in law and a couple of guys from his bowling team." And of course I've always applied "Bomber's Law" whenever I see anything going on that isn't easily understood. You'll have to read "Bomber's Law" to find out what the law is.You may have noticed that this "review" is less about the movie and more about Higgins. I intended it to show what type of author wrote the original story and not what to expect from the film. I decided to write this after reading an article about how CinemaScore has only ever had 19 "F" grades. The article describer "Killing Them Softly" as being "European". I guess by that they meant that it doesn't explain every little detail to the audience because they assume the audience are not all idiots.

How this movie has an over 6 score on here is beyond me. The story line sounds great, some great big name actors, specially with Brad Pitt, I bet he wishes he didn't do this movie. I don't know what went wrong, maybe the directors view as you have a great story line/plot, great seasoned actors and yet it is so slow, well I would never watch it again, I will never recommend it to anyone, it is a waste of good time.I wont bore you with a brief of the story as the story line above tells/sells it well, it just doesn't work on so many levels. Sorry Brad and Ray. Someone on here rated it a 10 and compared/stated it to be as good as the time immemorial mob films of the 70's, I can't believe it. I Should have known better, I am writing/Watched this movie in March of 2016, it was broadcast on a Government Broadcaster, never known for paying the big bucks for good quality US drama and even worse was scheduled at 11pm so that tells you it is of very little resale value as Govt Broadcasters don't like to pay, were Private Broadcasters do pay and that's why you will see the Godfather series still for many years to come on prime television channels, not Govt Broadcasters. This is a dud.