Killing Them Softly (2012)

Brad Pitt's grim crime thriller “Killing Them Softly” already has much box office notoriety: A money loser slapped with an “F” from CinemaScore. Hell with that. This is ballsy filmmaking of the highest order. Andrew Dominik -– who made “Assassination of Jesse James” with Pitt -– is behind “KSF” as director/writer, and he is not out to please anyone. We follow two low-end criminals (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) who rob a mafia-run card game, and escape with cash in hand and angry men in pursuit, one of them a world-weary hit man played by Pitt. “KSF” is set in 2008, during the economic meltdown and Obama/McCain election, and Dominik uses the panic and uncertainty of the time to explode the panic and uncertainty onscreen. There are no heroes, jokes, or happy endings. It’s a devastating punch about real criminal life, peppered with sad-sacks, drug-users, and average joes in over their heads. Not necessarily evil. Unintended fuck-ups. Dominik dares say our politicians, Wall Street bankers, and Founding Fathers are/were no different. It's the American way. Even a tedious slow-mo killing and oddball fireworks scene can’t hide that “KSF” is shockingly true cinematic art. A-