--- title: "Killing Them Softly" year: 2012 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/killing-them-softly" fi1m_score: 68 critics_score: 65 critics_reviews: 26 published: "2026-09-17T12:20:11.780076+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T12:20:12.154899+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Killing Them Softly (2012) Directed by Andrew Dominik · 1h 37m · MPA R · Crime, Thriller **Fi1m score: 68** · Critics 65 from 26 reviews *In a sentence:* Brad Pitt shoots people in the rain while the car radio explains what it means > Andrew Dominik’s hitman film is nastily funny in its parked cars and hotel rooms, and James Gandolfini is superb. But every television in it is tuned to the financial crisis, and the film keeps cutting away to make a point its characters have already made. ## Synopsis It is the autumn of 2008 and the banks are failing. In an unnamed American city, Johnny Amato (Vincent Curatola) hires two small-time crooks, Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn), to rob a high-stakes card game run by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta). The logic is that Markie once robbed his own game and boasted about it, so he will take the blame this time too. The robbery goes ahead in rubber gloves and stocking masks. The men behind the game send a lawyer, the Driver (Richard Jenkins), to hire Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), a hitman who prefers to work from a distance and wants to know exactly who he is killing before he is paid. ## Review Andrew Dominik’s second film with Brad Pitt, after [*The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford*](https://film.one/film/the-assassination-of-jesse-james-by-the-coward-robert-ford) (2007), is a small, grubby crime story from a George V. Higgins novel, moved to the autumn of 2008 and set in a city the film never names. Two low-rent crooks rob a card game under mob protection. The mob sends for Jackie Cogan (Pitt) to find out who did it and make an example of them. That is the whole plot. The rest is talk, a handful of killings and a great deal of television news. The talk is the best of it, and so is the robbery. Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) walk into Markie Trattman’s game in rubber gloves and stocking masks, with no plan for what happens if anyone says no. Greig Fraser shoots it close and dim, faces lit by the table lamp, and Brian A. Kates cuts it slowly, so that we sit through every second of two frightened men trying to sound like professionals. We were more tense than we have been at far bigger heists, because the only real danger is that one of them will panic. Pitt plays Cogan low and quiet. He arrives in a car, listens more than he speaks, and explains to the Driver (Richard Jenkins), the lawyer who carries messages from the men upstairs, that he prefers to kill from a distance, because up close people cry and beg. Jenkins plays every one of his scenes in the front seat of a parked car, fussing about expenses, and the two of them are the funniest thing Dominik has written. Fraser gives the city rain, sodium streetlight and motel corridors the colour of nicotine, and Patricia Norris, credited for both production design and costume, puts everyone in clothes that have been slept in. James Gandolfini arrives around the midpoint as Mickey, a second hitman brought in from New York, and the film is never better than when he is on screen. Mickey drinks from the moment he wakes and talks about his wife with a self-pity that turns without warning into grief. There is a hotel room scene in which he tells Cogan about a prison sentence and a marriage, and it moved us more than we expected a film this cold to manage; Gandolfini plays a man who knows he is finished and would like one more drink before anyone says so. Mendelsohn matches him in a lower key, all sweat and bad teeth, and Kates cuts Russell’s heroin scene as a drift of dissolves so that the dialogue arrives from under water. Ray Liotta’s Markie spends the film paying for a joke that was funny once. The killings are what critics have argued about. One is a shooting in the rain, filmed in extreme slow motion, with glass hanging in the air and a soft old love song underneath, and it is as carefully made as anything here. It is also the moment Dominik stops trusting the material. Higgins wrote men who die stupidly and fast; the slow motion makes it beautiful, and beautiful is the wrong word for what is happening to the man in the car. A beating earlier on is shot the same way, every punch given its own frame, and by the end of it we were flinching and faintly resentful at being asked to admire the lighting. Then there is the news. Every television in every bar and every car radio carries the bank bailout and the 2008 election, and the film cuts to them whenever a point needs underlining. The point is that the mob is a business, the country is a business, and both are run by men who cannot be seen to lose. The film makes it in the first ten minutes. It then makes it again roughly every quarter of an hour, and by the last reel we were irritated, because the people in the cars had already said everything the speeches say, and said it with better jokes. *Jesse James* was long and patient and let us find its meaning ourselves. This one is short and does not trust us to get there unaided. It is still worth an evening if you like your gangsters small, your dialogue nasty and your violence sudden, and Gandolfini alone repays the ticket. It runs 97 minutes, carries an 18 certificate earned twice over in the first half hour, and opened in UK cinemas on 20 September 2012. *Fi1m score 68, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics come down in favour, though few without a caveat. The reviews agree that Brad Pitt’s Cogan, a relaxed and talkative hitman, is the film’s chief asset, with James Gandolfini and Ben Mendelsohn singled out in support. Praise also clusters on the dialogue, much of it carried over from Higgins’s novel, on the gallows humour, and on the brutality of the killings. The robbery sequence comes up more than once as the scene that stays with people. Where they part is over the politics. Nearly every review, admiring or not, finds the 2008 election backdrop and the crime-equals-capitalism parallels laid on too thick; the disagreement is over how much that spoils things. The spread is wide. The Playlist thinks the themes are fully integrated and admires the film without reservation, while Roger Ebert finds it dismal and joyless, with little humour or suspense, and The Hollywood Reporter says it satisfies as a genre piece but insists on being something more. ### Reviews we read (26) - **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (B+): Dominik makes the film's themes of American greed and exceptionalism startlingly explicit, with a standout robbery sequence, but it settles into a portentous conversation piece that makes too much of a show of its own significance. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/killing-them-softly-1798175134) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (80/100, inferred): The film is a compelling black comedy about unhappy assassins in hard times, serving as a comment on economic bloodletting. It praises Brad Pitt's terrifically acted performance as the relaxed, talkative hitman Cogan in this cynical take on 2008 America. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/sep/20/killing-them-softly-review) - **The Independent** (80/100, inferred): The critic describes a grippingly toxic and cynical lowlife crime drama with a fine low-key performance from Brad Pitt and a musical ear for sharp dialogue, while highlighting its boot to American capitalism. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/hei-fi/entertainment/pitt-makes-a-hit-as-mob-rules-once-again-8162724.html) - **Time Out**, Dave Calhoun (4/5): The critic praises the film's smart, entertaining take on the source novel with strong performances and gallows humour, while noting it lays on the state-of-the-nation metaphors a bit thick. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/killing-them-softly) - **The Telegraph**, Tim Robey (75/100, inferred): Dominik's bleakly electrifying hit-man thriller is elegantly brutal and tough, with a thick layer of irony and a focus on male terror and the state of the nation. It parcels out Pitt's role with strict economy while delivering an oppressive, bruising take on the source novel. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/9555396/Killing-Them-Softly-review.html) - **Film Comment**, Jonathan Robbins (70/100, inferred): The film is wicked fun with satisfying performances and visceral violence, but its political ambitions connecting the criminal and financial economies do not fully cohere. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/review-killing-them-softly-andrew-dominik/) - **Financial Times**, Nigel Andrews (70/100, inferred): Everyone is out to kill everyone else in this cynical gangster film that implies the US is reckless, violent and naughty like its characters. It highlights Pitt's qualms as a hitman and the film's message that the country is a business first, updated to the 2008 election era with sharp turns from the source novel. [Read](https://www.ft.com/content/c9f40b44-0306-11e2-a484-00144feabdc0) - **Screen Daily** (70/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a deliciously stylish hard-boiled crime drama that is bleakly funny and nihilistic, praising its visual flair, smart dialogue and Brad Pitt's commanding presence while noting its reflection of tough times in America. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/killing-them-softly/5042489.article) - **Sight and Sound**, Trevor Johnston (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film's dialogue-driven crime narrative and strong performances, particularly Brad Pitt's, effective, but faults the overemphatic political messaging and stylistic flourishes for keeping it from true greatness. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/film-week-killing-them-softly) - **The New Yorker**, Anthony Lane (70/100, inferred): The critic highlights the film's faithful adaptation of Higgins's novel and its unglamorous crime milieu, praising conversations and performances. He notes it honors the source's voice but operates in a world of small-time crooks without masterminds. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/03/tough-times) - **Empire**, Damon Wise (65/100, inferred): The critic calls it a good, efficient crime thriller lifted by excellent performances, particularly Brad Pitt's, but let down by clunky social commentary and an ordinary script that lacks sharpness. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/killing-softly-2-review/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Betsy Sharkey (60/100, inferred): The critic calls out the film's heavy-handed parallels between crime and economic decay but praises Pitt's smooth performance and the brutal yet beautiful violence enhanced by music and cinematography. She notes the strong supporting cast in a gritty noir. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-xpm-2012-nov-29-la-et-mn-killing-them-softly-review-20121130-story.html) - **Vulture**, David Edelstein (60/100, inferred): Everything springing from the source novel is very fine—grimly amusing then shockingly brutal—but the director veers off course with deep thoughts on the American character that feel like a head-slapper. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2012/11/movie-review-killing-them-softly.html) - **Evening Standard** (50/100, inferred): The critic praises strong performances from Ben Mendelsohn and James Gandolfini, the film's look and the killings, but complains about excessive talk, heavy-handed social commentary and it becoming steadily less enjoyable. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/killing-them-softly-review-8162656.html) - **Radio Times**, Damon Wise (50/100, inferred): The critic notes the film's talky, heavy-handed commentary on post-financial crisis America and its failure to innovate on the gangster genre, but highlights strong turns from Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini along with gripping set pieces. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-w58z7w/killing-them-softly/) - **Slant Magazine**, Calum Marsh (2/4): The film reiterates shopworn ideas about crime and capitalism for a post-Occupy world in a hamfisted way, resulting in a facile genre picture too concerned with looking cool and empty posturing. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/killing-them-softly/) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a dismal, dreary series of cruel murders in a joyless cityscape with little humor or suspense. He praises the cast's screen presence but notes the story lacks the romance and tension of better noir films. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/killing-them-softly-2012) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Todd McCarthy (30/100, inferred): A juicy, bloody, grimy and profane crime drama that amply satisfies as a deep-dish genre piece but insistently wants to be something more, with strong performances and craft undercut by showy directorial flourishes and overt messaging. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/killing-softly-cannes-review-327519/) - **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff (A): The critic calls the film a brilliant, uncompromising anti-thriller that seethes with anger at the state of the nation and economy, praising its seamless integration of political themes, ambitious storytelling and powerful performances. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/review-brilliant-angry-killing-them-softly-is-the-anti-thriller-for-our-times-20121128/) - **HeyUGuys**, Lisa Giles-Keddie (4.5/5): The critic praises the film's enthralling dialogue-driven scenes, strong ensemble acting from Pitt, Gandolfini and others, and its timely economic themes, calling it a must-see for fans of the crime-gangster genre. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/killing-them-softly-review/) - **Den of Geek**, Paul Martinovic (4/5): A stunningly well-made and ambitious crime film that overplays its political hand slightly but remains one of the best of the year thanks to strong direction and performances. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/killing-them-softly-review/) - **Digital Spy**, Stella Papamichael (4/5): A dark, devilishly funny guilty-pleasure crime story elevated by mood, humor and strong performances, though the blunt economic moralizing occasionally diverts from the fun. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a406699/killing-them-softly-review-brad-pitt-reunites-with-andrew-dominik/) - **The Skinny**, Chris Fyvie (4/5): An exhilarating neo-noir with wit, fire, strong performances and gallows humour that examines machismo and economic decline, despite some overt satire and incongruous set-pieces. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/killing-them-softly) - **Paste**, Annlee Ellingson (7.2): The film delivers sharp, memorable dialogue and stylish violence set against the 2008 election backdrop, reuniting director Andrew Dominik with star Brad Pitt for a bleak crime story. However, its political and economic themes come across as heavy-handed. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/killing-them-softly) - **Eye for Film**, David Graham (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the heavy-handed political and economic messaging patronizing and distracting from the narrative, though acknowledging strong performances and brutal violence, ultimately deeming the film too cold and muddled to fully connect with. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/killing-them-softly-2012-film-review-by-david-graham) - **The Wrap** (35/100, inferred): The review finds sharp performances, especially James Gandolfini's, and a few strong scenes undermined by the film's relentless hammering of 2008 economic-crisis subtext. It faults the wobbly plotting and overdone political commentary that Dominik fails to integrate effectively. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/killing-them-softly-review-crime-comedy-bludgeons-us-repeatedly-subtext-67206/) ## Details - **Director:** Andrew Dominik - **Director:** Andrew Dominik - **Screenplay:** Andrew Dominik - **Novel:** George V. Higgins - **Cinematography:** Greig Fraser - **Editor:** Brian A. Kates - **Production design:** Patricia Norris - **Costume design:** Patricia Norris - **Producer:** Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Steve Schwartz - **Cast:** Brad Pitt as Jackie Cogan; Scoot McNairy as Frankie; Ben Mendelsohn as Russell; James Gandolfini as Mickey; Ray Liotta as Markie Trattman; Richard Jenkins as Driver; Vincent Curatola as Johnny Amato; Sam Shepard as Dillon - **Runtime:** 1h 37m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 30 November 2012 - **Genres:** Crime, Thriller - **Budget:** $15 million - **Box office:** $38 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNoSRlOJXm0 ## Where to watch in the US - Tubi: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $3.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $12.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IT, KR, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PL, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Friends of Eddie Coyle* (1973): The other great Higgins adaptation; Robert Mitchum, tired and doomed, in a Boston autumn. - *The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford* (2007), Fi1m 84: Dominik and Pitt at length and at leisure, and the patience pays. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-assassination-of-jesse-james-by-the-coward-robert-ford.md) - *Animal Kingdom* (2010), Fi1m 84: Mendelsohn at his most frightening, in a Melbourne crime family that eats its young. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/animal-kingdom.md) - *Le Samouraï* (1967): Alain Delon as the hitman who says nothing; the opposite approach, and it works. - *The Long Good Friday* (1980), Fi1m 88: Bob Hoskins’s London gangster learns the hard way that crime is also a business. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-long-good-friday.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/killing-them-softly