Nothing busts canons quite like living in interesting times. In our ongoing Inflection Point series, we look back at the films that have taken on new relevance due to our ongoing cultural and political upheaval. Some beloved, some undiscovered, these titles deserve newfound consideration as film criticism evolves to meet the moment.
In 2008, at the height of the economic recession, City University of London professor Subhabrata Banerjee popularized the concept of “necrocapitalism.” This theoretical model positioned death and displacement as more than just a byproduct of capitalism; loss of the right kinds of life was, in fact, a driving force behind the success of most capitalistic endeavors. As we look back and reevaluate the films of the 2000s economic crisis, we can see a movie like Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly” as a worthy condemnation of American consumerism.
Like all good satire, “Killing Them Softly” works just as well at the surface level. Two men, desperate for work in the midst of the American recession, rob a high-stakes poker game at the urging of a local bookie. The game’s proprietor, Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), made the mistake of stealing from his own poker game a few years back. Now his fate is sealed; even if his employers believe that he had nothing to do with the new robbery, Markie must be eliminated before his cohort is seen as vulnerable. This brings Jackie (Brad Pitt) to town to look under a few rocks and sort things out for the Powers That Be.
Few things in life are as enjoyable as watching Pitt play the most put-together person in the room. Similarly, Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn have turned unsavory character work into an art form unto itself. It’s a pure joy to watch these two actors run with their first real opportunity to headline a mainstream feature. Throw in cinematographer Greig Fraser’s eye for urban decay – placing some of the film’s most essential sequences in overgrown parking lots and abandoned carparks – and there’s enough here to make “Killing Them Softly” a notable neo-noir on its cinematic elements alone.
Then again, entertainment is not exactly the focus of Dominik’s long-anticipated follow up to ‘The Assassination of Jesse James.’ This film possesses a cold undercurrent of rage and impotence, once that not only subverts the conditions of the typical gangster movie but actively touts its irrelevance as a genre. “Killing Me Softly” positions the actions of its characters meaningless against a rising tide of political and government corruption. It’s a film where James Gandolfini – the premiere goodfella actor of his generation – can claim that none of their actions matter, not even a little, and you get the sense that the film strongly agrees.
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Even in the film’s earliest moments, we recognize that this movie exists outside of our usual understanding of the rise/rule/fall archetypes of gangster movies. McNairy’s Frankie is shown against a backdrop of political posters, one of Barack Obama and the other for John McCain. He listens to a speech by Obama, where the future president promises America a path of the housing crisis and the economic recession. Frankie is about to condemn a man to death for $40,000, a paltry sum by gangster movie standards that will nevertheless be split three ways among Franke’s accomplices in crime.
Perhaps there was a time when the corporate approach of the crime empire might have seemed like Dominik’s stab at meta-humor. Now, it just looks angry. Take, for example, their treatment of Liotta’s character. The question is not whether Markie has to die; Pitt’s Jackie is more than happy to explain the ironclad logic behind this hit over multiple visits with Richard Jenkins’ crisis management professional. Instead, the argument is over whether it’s necessary to have him beaten before he dies. The decision-makers, excited to roleplay the part of mob bosses, ask for the beating as a show of good faith. Jackie has his doubts, but he subcontracts the work anyways, forcing two of Markie’s buddies to deliver the message before the message.
But there’s nothing stylish about what follows. “Killing Them Softly” might set a record for the most crying in a film about organized crime, and Markie certainly does his fair share of sobbing as he’s beaten half to death. What makes this scene so ugly, though – ugly in ways that the slow-motion punches and artful blood spatter only serve to accentuate – is the glee on the face of Max Casella’s Barry. Barry and his brother may be at the very bottom of the organization’s totem pole. Still, this powerlessness has taught them to find great satisfaction in the pain they administer to those below them. “The cruelty is the point,” we’ve become so fond of saying, and “Killing Them Softly” proves just how true this might be.
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The film also includes contemporaneous speeches and public addresses, statements meant to remind Americans that our indomitable spirit will help us overcome the current recession. When things are at their most tense – when Frankie and Russell are holding up the poker game, or when triggermen wait in ambush of their victims – the soundtrack is replaced by platitudes from men like McCain and Obama. “Killing Them Softly” is hardly subtle in its takedown of corporate America, but what seemed overt or even clumsy in 2012 has aged to perfection in 2020. The airwaves are once again filled with the details of massive corporate bailouts, and the idea that a well-functioning society means a well-functioning economy has never been more pervasive.
And this political message – that the suffering of those with nothing ensures the success of those with everything – is hammered home again, and again, and again throughout the film. For some movies steeped in political commentary, the line between immediate and didactic exists more concretely in the minds of the audience than it does on the screen. Plenty of critics were turned off by the directness of Dominik’s political message on the film’s initial release. Now? It almost doesn’t feel angry enough. Jackie’s final speech – once bordering on clumsy – now feels like a fitting eulogy for Hollywood’s outdated depictions of American success. “America is a business,” he says after learning that Jenkins’s higherups have retroactively garnished his rate for killing three men. “Now fucking pay me.”
In 2012, “Killing Me Softly” attracted curiosity as an anti-gangster movie. In 2020, the more apt comparison may be Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite.” Like “Parasite,” “Killing Me Softly” presents us with a group of characters who are overtly coded as lawbreakers. In their need to make a living, they are all too happy to throw their contemporaries under the bus, leading to acts of unspeakable violence where only the poor suffer. Most men die; those who survive are forced to reckon with life in jail over criminal convictions that pale in comparison to the actions of the rich and powerful. When it comes to building a body of work in support of necrocapitalism, more significant film canons have been created from less.
