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.
Ultimately, as crafted as Killing Them Softly is, it's less satisfying than either The Sopranos or Goodfellas. Still, Dominik and his cast cruise some very mean streets indeed.
– Lisa Kennedy,
Denver Post,
30 Nov 2012
fresh:
Trading in pleasures of a deliberately rarefied sort, writer-director Andrew Dominik's talky, character-rich genre piece largely short-circuits thrills to sketch a grimly funny portrait of thugs taking care of business, in every rotten sense of the word.
– Justin Chang,
Variety,
30 Nov 2012
fresh:
Like its source material, the movie is stylish, profane, intelligent, and eminently diverting. But as much as it is a delight that Dominik has disinterred Higgins's work, it is a mild disappointment that the result is not more substantial.
– Christopher Orr,
The Atlantic,
30 Nov 2012
rotten:
The anvils of obviousness rain down so hard and fast in New Zealand-born/Australian-based director Andrew Dominik's meditation on low-rent crime and American decline, that it might as well be a Coyote-Road Runner cartoon
– Cary Darling,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com,
3 Dec 2012
rotten:
'Killing Them Softly' collapses under the crushing weight of the director's narcissism.