"Killing Them Softly" (2013) Directed by Andrew Dominik

“America’s not a country. It’s just a business”.

The opening 15 minutes of this latest Andrew Dominik feature is a bizarre, surreal and odd mix that purposely sets the scene for this flawed yet deeply interesting and intriguing thriller. The opening credits themselves are quickly edited amongst the opening scene of an obscured man walking to the entrance of a tunnel, captured in slow motion, the mouth of the tunnel is more in focus, and of the rubbish strewn all over the floor and in the distance, fluttering on the breeze. Accompanying this dark opening is a similarly dark and foreboding musical score scattered amongst the similarly scattered scenes (and indeed the rubbish) which is eerily similar in tone to the score from Ben Wheatley’s brilliant Kill List. Barely one minute into the film, and the scene has been well and truly set.

Also scattered amongst the very early scenes is a speech from yet to be installed USA President Barack Obama, crudely spliced amongst the rubbish and opening credits and our as yet unseen male figure. This is also very much a scene setter as throughout the film, in every vehicle, every bar, on every television, there is a seeming running commentary from either Barack Obama, George Bush or political commentators discussing the financial plight of the United States of America. This also sets the timeline for the film at the handover between Presidents Bush and Obama of 2008/9 but even more significant in line with recent events (I am writing this on Saturday 5th January 2013) is the parallel between today’s events and the continual mooting of a “Fiscal Cliff” and the real life events as depicted and shown in every bar, heard on every television in the film: the financial crisis that happened just four years ago. Then, as with now, the country stood at a precipice, or a cliff to use today’s anaemic language. Then, Bush is warning about banks being unable to open and of full scale financial panic unless they are bailed out. Today, the situation is similar and in my opinion, gravely and deliberately worse.

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The above opening paragraphs are taken from my original review of "Killing Them Softly" penned and published nearly a decade ago, transferred to my Medium blog site on 20th January 203 but which can be read in full and for free via my Substack blog site and original article linked immediately below:

https://ramblingmusings666.substack.com/p/killing-them-softly-2012-e8d69875547b

This spoiler free review is also integral to volume 3 of my 7 volume series of "essential film reviews collection". Currently only available in e-book format, each exhaustive volume of multiple spoiler free film reviews is priced at £4.99 however, should you have an Amazon Kindle "Unlimited" package, you can read each and every volume for free:

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All 7 Volumes

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