Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik, 2012)

A very much less ambitious film from the director Dominik five years after his modern classic Western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Brad Pitt features again as both star and producer, although the focus for the most part is on two losers who foolishly bust up a card game and from then on are living on borrowed time. It goes for a sadsack version of the Pulp Fiction set-up at the start, with the twosome talking wish-fulfilment crap in their car before they carry out the misconceived job, and then Pitt makes his appearance as a contract killer on their tail, accompanied by a drunken James Gandolfini. The strong leads and moody photography just about keep the interest up, but there's a feeling of going through the motions in terms of both character and overall point, not added to by the film's rather forced background context involving the current uncertain political and economic environment in America.

5/10