Thursday, March 28, 2024

Brad Pitt Back in Oscar Race With Witty, Violent “Killing Them Softly”

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When did Brad Pitt become such a good actor? He nailed it in “Moneyball” and got an Oscar nomination. As Cogan, a literate hit man in Andrew Dominick’s “Killing Them Softly,” he’s magic, a real old fashioned leading man who’s integrated character actor choices into his repetoire.

Cogan doesn’t even come into the movie right away; he’s preceded by Scoot McNairy, in a Best Supporting Actor worthy performance and several other really terrific turns by Ray Liotta, Vince Curatola, and Ben Mendelson. They are each gifted with remarkable, quotable dialogue that will be memorable.

This is The Weinstein Company’s third entry here in Cannes so far, making them three for three with “Lawless” and “The Sapphires.” Not to mention their screening last night of footage from three more films that look great: “The Master,” “The Silver Linings Playbook,” and “Django Unchained.” This should be some wild fall season from Harvey Weinstein, who’s back in form with a vengeance.

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Set against the 2008 election and the rapidly growing recession, “Killing Them Softly”– while violent–is a thinking man’s crime story. Cogan delivers the final line, destined to be as much of a classic as the film: “America isn’t a country, it’s a business.”

And business it is, as the hold up of a gangsters’ card game goes wrong, angers the wrong modern outlaws, and triggers a series of “hits” that come to involve Pitt and a very amusing James Gandolfini (as a hit man who’s more interested in his own hedonism than completing his job) and Richard Jenkins as a new kind of corporate stooge.

Gandolfini once joked that every time he was in a movie with Brad Pitt it was a failure and he was Pitt’s bad luck charm. No more.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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