Richard joins CTV NewsChannel and anchor Angie Seth to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including the latest from your friendly neighbourhood crimefighter in “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the dark carnival of “Nightmare Alley” and the ex-porn star drama “Red Rocket.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Don’t go to “Nightmare Alley,” a remake of the 1947 Tyrone Power film noir, now playing in theatres, for the warm fuzzies. Guillermo Del Toro’s new movie is as cold and icy as the season in which it is being released. Any movie that begins with the burning of a corpse and ends, well, you’ll have to buy a ticket to find out, isn’t exactly geared to make your season bright, but film fans should find this to be a gift.
Set in the days leading up to World War II, the story begins as drifter-with-a-dangerous-past Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) takes a job at a travelling carnival. Paid a dollar a day plus a hot meal, he does grunt work, putting up the big top tent and doing physical labor.
His gift of the gab soon earns him a promotion, working as a barker for the theatrical mystic Zeena (Toni Collette) and her magician husband Pete (David Strathairn). Stan is a quick study, and becomes an expert on how to bilk folks out of their hard-earned cash.
Longing for something bigger, he takes his own mentalism act on the road with the help of assistant and love interest Molly (Rooney Mara). It’s all fake, the two communicate through a series of veiled verbal clues, but audiences eat it up. They are making money performing at upscale nightclubs, but the offer of doing private readings for prominent people comes with a price tag Stan can’t resist.
Del Toro is known is creating intricate worlds populated by amazing people and creatures but don’t expect a replay of “Pan’s Labyrinth” or his Best Picture Oscar winner “The Shape of Water.” There are no supernatural elements in “Nightmare Alley.” The monster here is Stan’s cold hard ambition.
Cooper is in slickster mode here, playing Stan as a smooth-talking manipulator whose bad deeds stack up like some sort of ethically challenged Jenga game. He is an enigma. Willing to do whatever it takes to survive. He is a flawed but coldly ambitious man whose eyes are always trained toward the future. It is his biggest asset and, ultimately, his downfall.
Cooper does a good job at exposing Stan’s layers. He’s a complicated character, an amoral seducer with a seemingly charming disposition and Cooper only allows brief peaks at his desperation and brutality.
As good as Cooper is, it’s Cate Blanchett as the femme fatale psychiatrist Lilith Ritter who steals the show. From her overpainted red lips and seductive nature to her quick intelligence and vulnerability, she is the film’s most interesting and dangerous presence. Nice office too. It’s an Art Deco lover’s paradise.
Above all though, “Nightmare Alley” is Del Toro’s film. He doesn’t need one of his trademarked creatures like the Pale Man or The Asset to shock. Here he takes a methodical, detailed approach to the story, gradually building to some shocking violence and psychological horror. His interest here is the sinister, not the supernatural, and while the first hour gets bogged down with set-up and a major plot point is telegraphed (NO SPOILERS HERE!), his ability to create atmosphere is singular. Nobody casts a shroud of menace like Del Toro.
“Nightmare Alley” takes its time to set up its dark pleasures, but emerges as a memorable tribute to film noir whose images will stick in your mind long after the theatre’s lights are switched on.
Stanley (Richard Jenkins) has worked the graveyard shift at Oscar’s Chicken and Fish in Albion, Michigan for thirty-eight years. In 1971 he made $3.10 an hour. Now, almost four decades later, after never missing a day, he’s making a whopping $13.50. “This wasn’t my dream job when I started,” he says, “but it turned out pretty well for me.”
His time at Oscar’s is coming to a close. He’s given notice at the flophouse where he lives, quit the job and has plans to move to Florida to look after his ailing mother.
Before he hits the road he has to train his replacement, a Jevon (Shane Paul McGhie), a bright young man on parole after being arrested for defacing a monument.
The two spend a few nights together, with Jevon learning the ropes from Stanley.
“There’s an art to the third shift,” says Stanley. “Once I had to make my own pickles. Once we had a birthday party and we ran out of ketchup. It wasn’t pretty but I did what I had to do.”
The two have little in common, except that they both need this job. For Stanley it has been his whole life. His greatest achievement the creation of “The Stanwich” and he takes pride in the work. Jevon doesn’t care about the rules and regulations but will be sent back to County Jail if he doesn’t keep the job.
“The Last Shift” is a low-key drama that that threatens to break out into a feel-good movie where Stanley and Jevon learn from one another, each propping the other up. It is to director Andrew Cohn’s credit that the saccharine stuff is kept in Oscar’s condiment section and never allowed to bleed into the story.
Jenkins is the embodiment of a man whose life has passed him by. He believed that hard work was enough to build a good life. Trouble is, he’s been exploited by an owner who pays him less than he could make if he quit and went to work at any other fast food chain and now, thirty-eight years later, he has nothing to show for all those nights of working midnight to six. He is stuck in his ways, and his knees and back ache as much as his spirit.
Jevon, who used to write about politics for his school newspaper before being arrested on trumped up charges, is realistic about the situation he and Stanley find themselves in. His awareness irks Stanley, forcing him to confront the failure that has characterized his life.
“The Last Shift” is a wonderfully performed, if somewhat downbeat, portrait of the underbelly of the American Dream. It examines issues of white privilege—“That’s just baloney!” Stanley bellows. “No one ever gave me nothing.”—racial bias and how, despite the best of intentions, sometimes things just don’t work out. A timely treatise on the lives of overlooked people, “The Last Shift” is a tragedy with equal parts soul and heartbreak.
“Kajillionaire,” a poignant comedy from director Miranda July and now playing in theatres, is an absurdist tale of survival and control.
The Dynes, Robert (Richard Jenkins), Theresa (Debra Winger) and daughter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood), are a crime family struggling to survive. They live in a low-rent abandoned office next to a bubble factory, where pink bubbles overflow through the vents into their space. Clip artists, they eke out a living by pulling low level scams that are often more work than they’re worth. Even their daughter’s name is part of a con job. They named her after a homeless man who won the lottery in the long shot hope that he would notice and write her into his will.
When Old Dolio wins a trip to New York they concoct a luggage and travel insurance swindle that could finally put them in the bigtime… or at least allow them to pay their back rent and avoid eviction.
Like all their stings, things don’t go as planned but they do meet Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), an outgoing young woman with the makings of a good grifter. Despite Old Dolio’s misgivings about bringing an outsider into their tightly knit group, the Dynes and Melanie set about to separate easy marks from their money.
What begins as an unconventional crime story soon turns into Old Dolio’s story of self-discovery as she comes to realize that her upbringing has left her unprepared for the world outside the petty criminality that has been her life.
Jenkins, Winger and Rodriguez bring something unique to each of their characters. Jenkins and Winger exude desperation as the rumpled, bumbling small timers, while Rodriguez is all charm and warmth as their protégée but it is Wood who steals the show.
Wood transforms completely to play Old Dolio. With waist-length straw hair obscuring her face she drops her voice an octave or two and adopts the physicality of someone who learned how to walk from reading books. It’s a wonderfully nuanced comedic character but there’s more to her than awkward behaviour and a silly name. Wood keeps Old Dolio’s emotions under wraps for much of the film, but there’s an apparent inner life that becomes more and more apparent as she begins to wake up and make a connection with someone whose last name isn’t Dyne for the first time in her life.
Intentionally stilted and oddball, Wood makes Old Dolio the beating heart of “Kajillionaire,” a story that derives its emotional stability from a character whose parents were never emotional or stable with her.
THE GOOD (in alphabetical order)
Baby Driver: Although it contains more music than most tuneful of movies “Baby Driver,” the new film from director Edgar Wright, isn’t a musical in the “West Side Story,” “Sound of Music” sense. Wallpapered with 35 rock ‘n roll songs on the soundtrack it’s a hard driving heist flick that can best be called an action musical.
The Big Sick: Even when “The Big Sick” is making jokes about terrorism and the “X-Files” it is all heart, a crowd-pleaser that still feels personal and intimate.
Call Me By Your Name: This is a movie of small details that speak to larger truths. Director Luca Guadagnino keeps the story simple relying on the minutiae to add depth and beauty to the story. The idyllic countryside, the quaint town, the music of the Psychedelic Furs and the languid pace of a long Italian summer combine to create the sensual backdrop against which the romance between the two blossoms. Guadagnino’s camera captures it all, avoiding the pitfalls of melodrama to present a story that is pure emotion. It feels real and raw, haunted by the ghosts of loves gone by.
Darkest Hour: This is a historical drama with all the trappings of “Masterpiece Theatre.” You can expect photography, costumes and period details are sumptuous. What you may not expect is the light-hearted tone of much of the goings on. While this isn’t “Carry On Churchill,” it has a lighter touch that might be expected. Gary Oldman, not an actor known for his comedic flourishes, embraces the sly humour. When Churchill becomes Prime Minister his wife, Clementine (Kristin Scott Thomas) makes an impassioned speech about the importance of the work he is about to take on. He raises a glass and, cutting through the emotion of the moment, says, “Here’s to not buggering it up!” It shows a side of Churchill not often revealed in wartime biopics.
The Disaster Artist: The key to pulling off “The Disaster Artist” is not recreating “The Room” beat for beat, although they do that, it’s actually about treating Wiseau as a person and not an object of fun. He’s an outrageous character and Franco commits to it 100%. From the marble-mouthed speech pattern that’s part Valley Girl and part Beaker from The Muppets to the wild clothes and stringy hair, he’s equal parts creepy and lovable but underneath his bravado are real human frailties. Depending on your point of view he’s either delusional or aspirational but in Franco’s hands he’s never also never less than memorable. It’s a broad, strange performance but it may also be one of the actor’s best.
Dunkirk: This is an intense movie but it is not an overly emotional one. The cumulative effect of the vivid images and sounds will stir the soul but despite great performances the movie doesn’t necessarily make you feel for one character or another. Instead its strength is in how it displays the overwhelming sense of scope of the Dunkirk mission. With 400,000 men on the ground with more in the air and at sea, the sheer scope of the operation overpowers individuality, turning the focus on the collective. Director Christopher Nolan’s sweeping camera takes it all in, epic and intimate moments alike.
The Florida Project: This is, hands down, one of the best films of the year. Low-budget and naturalistic, it packs more punch than any superhero. Director Sean Baker defies expectations. He’s made a film about kids for adults that finds joy in rocky places. What could have been a bleak experience or an earnest message movie is brought to vivid life by characters that feel real. It’s a story about poverty that neither celebrates or condemns its characters. Mooney’s exploits are entertaining and yet an air of jeopardy hangs heavy over every minute of the movie. Baker knows that Halley and Moonie’s well being hangs by a thread but he also understands they exist in the real world and never allows their story to fall into cliché.
Get Out: This is the weirdest and most original mainstream psychodrama to come along since “The Babadook.” The basic premise harkens back to the Sidney Poitier’s classic “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” In that film parents, played by Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, have their attitudes challenged when their daughter introduces them to her African American fiancé. The uncomfortable situation of meeting in-laws for the first time is universal. It’s the added layers of paranoia and skewered white liberalism that propels the main character’s (Daniel Kaluuya) situation into full-fledged horror. In this setting he is the other, the stranger and as his anxiety grows the social commentary regarding attitudes about race in America grows sharper and more focussed.
Lady Bird: Greta Gerwig’s skilful handling of the story of Lady Bird’s busy senior year works not just because it’s unvarnished and honest in its look at becoming an adult but also, in a large degree, to Saoirse Ronan’s performance. I have long called her ‘Lil Meryl. She’s an actor of unusual depth, a young person (born in 1994) with an old soul. Lady Bird is almost crushed by the weight of uncertainty that greets her with every turn—will her parents divorce, will there be money for school, will Kyle be the boy of her dreams, will she ever make enough cash to repay her parents for her upbringing?—but Ronan keeps her nimble, sidestepping teen ennui with a complicated mix of snappy one liners, hard earned wisdom and a well of emotion. It’s tremendous, Academy Award worthy work.
The Post: Steven Spielberg film is a fist-pump-in-the-air look at the integrity and importance of a free press. It’s a little heavy-handed but these are heavy-handed times. Director Spielberg and stars Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep are entertainers first and foremost, and they do entertain here, but they also shine a light on a historical era whose reverberations are being felt today stronger than ever.
The Shape of Water: A dreamy slice of pure cinema. Director Guillermo del Toro uses the stark Cold War as a canvas to draw warm and vivid portraits of his characters. It’s a beautiful creature feature ripe with romance, thrills and, above all, empathy for everyone. This is the kind of movie that reminds us of why we fell in love with movies in the first place.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: The story of a mother’s unconventional war with the world is simple enough, it’s the complexity of the characters that elevates the it to the level of great art.
Wonder Woman: Equal parts Amazon sword and sandal epic, mad scientist flick, war movie and rom com, it’s a crowd pleaser that places the popular character front and centre. As played by Gal Gadot, Diana is charismatic and kick ass, a superhero who is both truly super and heroic. Like Superman she is firmly on the side of good, not a tortured soul à la Batman. Naïve to the ways of the world, she runs headfirst into trouble. Whether she’s throwing a German tank across a battlefield, defying gravity to leap to the top of a bell tower, tolerating Trevor’s occasional mansplaining or deflecting bullets with her indestructible Bracelets of Submission, she proves in scene after scene to be both a formidable warrior and a genuine, profoundly empathic character.
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
Set in Cold War-era Baltimore, The Shape of Water sees Sally Hawkins as Elisa, a woman rendered mute by childhood abuse. A cleaner in a military laboratory and storage facility, she communicates through sign language with co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and best friend and neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins). When a mysterious Gill Man, held captive in a giant water-filled iron lung, is brought in the cleaners are told to keep their distance.
Elisa, however, bonds with the beast. After hours, when everyone else has gone home, she stays behind, playing music for the creature, performing dance moves learned from old movies and feeding him her special hard-boiled eggs. They click. She relates to him being unable to speak. “He doesn’t know what I lack,” she signs to Giles. “He sees me for what I am. As I am. He’s happy to see me.” He responds to her gentle nature.
His captors feel differently. They see him — “The Asset” they call him — as a case study, ripe for vivisection so they can discover how he can breathe on land and underwater. Everyone except for Elisa, it seems, wants The Asset dead.
When Elisa discovers a hard-nosed coiled-ball-of-rage named Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon) is torturing the beast, she hatches a catch-and-release plan. Steal the creature, hide him until the next rainstorm fills a nearby canal and set him free.
The tale of intrigue takes a romantic turn when Elisa begins to regard The Asset as more man than monster.
The Shape of Water is a dreamy slice of pure cinema. Director Guillermo del Toro uses the stark Cold War backdrop as a canvas to draw warm and vivid portraits of his characters. Elisa and Giles are an unconventional family, outsiders in a world that values conformity.
Zelda is a feisty and funny presence — “I can handle pee,” she says, mop in hand cleaning up one of The Asset’s messes. “I can handle poo. But blood? That does something awful to me.” — while the creature is an empathic being with soulful eyes who glows with blue light when he is happy.
The combination of characters and del Toro’s flights of fancy is not only a love letter to the movies — Giles and Elisa live above a movie theatre, watch old musicals on TV and there’s even an Old Hollywood fantasy sequence inside the story — but a Valentine to why we fell in love with the movies in the first place. It’s a feast for the eyes and the heart.
At the centre of it all are Hawkins and Doug Jones as The Asset. Both, one nakedly emotional, the other hidden away under layers of makeup, wouldn’t be out of place in a silent movie. The fantasy elements of the story swirl around but Hawkins’ delicate but steely presence (aided by Jenkins’ heartfelt and occasionally heartbreaking loyalty) grounds the story in reality. Jones, though covered in scales and gills, uses his physicality to project the character’s power and vulnerability.
In the story’s thriller section, Shannon provides a villain whose gangrenous fingers are a metaphor for the rot in his soul. In the actor’s hands, Strickland is as cold as the blood that runs through the creature’s veins.
Wound tightly together these elements combine to form a beautiful creature-feature ripe with romance, thrills and, above all, empathy for all.
Love is not about appearances. That’s a common theme. It’s “Beauty and the Beast” and “King Kong.” It’s “Creature from the Black Lagoon” and “Edward Scissorhands.” It’s “ET” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” With “The Shape of Water” Guillermo del Toro redefines the age-old maxim for a new generation.
Set in Cold War era Baltimore, Sally Hawkins plays Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a woman rendered mute by childhood abuse. A cleaner in a military laboratory and storage facility, she communicates through sign language with co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and best friend and neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins). When a mysterious Amazonian Gill Man, held captive in a giant water-filled iron lung, is brought in the cleaners are told to keep their distance. The creature is not from the Black Lagoon, but from a river in South America.
“The thing we keep in there is an affront,” says the hard-nosed coiled-ball-of-rage Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon). I should know. I pulled that thing out of a filthy river in South America and dragged it all the way home and we didn’t get to like one another much.”
Elisa, however, bonds with the beast. After hours, when everyone else has gone home, she stays behind, playing music for the creature, performing dance moves learned from old movies and feeding him her special hard-boiled eggs. They click. She relates to him being unable to speak. “He doesn’t know what I lack,” she tells Giles. “He sees me for what I ham. As I am. He’s happy to see me.” He responds to her gentle nature.
His captors feel differently. They see him—“The Asset” they call him—as a case study, ripe for vivisection so they can discover how he can breathe on land and underwater. Everyone except for Elisa, it seems, wants the Asset dead. The United States government wants to study the body, while the Russians want to kill him and steal the body to prevent the US from learning anything about it.
When Elisa discovers Strickland is torturing the beast she hatches a catch and release plan. Steal the creature, hide him until the next rainstorm fills a nearby canal and set him free. Zelda and Giles reluctantly agree to help. “He’s not human,” protests Giles. “If we don’t help it,” Elisa replies, “neither are we.” A doctor (Michael Stuhlbarg) who doesn’t want to see the creature harmed, provides medical advice.
The tale of intrigue takes a romantic turn when Elisa begins to regard the Asset as more man than monster.
“The Shape of Water” is a dreamy slice of pure cinema. Del Toro uses the stark Cold War as a canvas to draw warm and vivid portraits of his characters. Elisa and Giles are an unconventional family, outsiders in a world that values conformity. Zelda is a feisty and funny presence—“I can handle pee,” she says, mop in hand cleaning up one of the Asset’s messes. “I can handle poo. But blood? That does something awful to me.”—while the creature is an empathic being with soulful eyes who glows with blue light when he is happy.
The combination of characters and del Toro’s flights of fancy is not only a love letter to the movies—Giles and Elisa live above a movie theatre, watch old musicals on TV and there’s even an Old Hollywood fantasy sequence inside the story—but a Valentine to why we fell in loves with the movies in the first place. It’s a feast for the eyes and the heart.
At the center of it all are Hawkins and Doug Jones as the Asset. Both, one nakedly emotional, the other hidden away under layers of make-up, wouldn’t be out of place in a silent movie. The fantasy elements of the story swirl around but Hawkins’s delicate but steely presence (aided by Jenkins’s heartfelt and occasionally heartbreaking loyalty) grounds the story in reality. Jones. Though covered in scales and gills, uses his physicality to project the character’s power and vulnerability.
In the story’s thriller section Shannon provides a villain whose gangrenous fingers are a metaphor for the rot in his soul. In the actor’s hands Strickland is as cold as the blood that runs through the creature’s veins.
Wound tightly together these elements combine to form a beautiful creature feature ripe with romance, thrills and, above all, empathy for all. This is the kind of movie that reminds us of why we fell in love with movies in the first place.
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
The Brady Bunch is pop culture’s most famous blended family.
The story of a “lovely lady who was bringing up three very lovely girls,” and a “man named Brady with three boys of his own,” who “would somehow form a family,” ran for fives seasons on TV, endlessly in reruns and even spawned two movies.
“The Brady Bunch is a live-action modern fairy tale of family,” says Christopher Knight who played Peter Brady on the original show. “In this context it’s less odd that it’s lasted for over 30 years; and why it may last in some respects as long as Mother Goose!”
He may be optimistic on the eternal appeal of his show, but he’s not wrong to imply that the idea of blended families could remain the subject of stories and movies for years to come.
This weekend “cinematic soulmates” Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler reunite for a third time, following The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates, for Blended, a romantic comedy about the mixing and mingling of two families.
Hollywood has been blending screen families for years. The grandfather of these blended family stories has to be Yours, Mine and Ours.
Based on the memoir Who Gets the Drumstick? by Helen Beardsley, this 1968 Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda film sees a widow with eight kids and a widower with 10 children (including Mike, played by Tim Matheson 10 years before he found fame in Animal House) become one big (almost) happy family.
The film was produced by Ball, who became so friendly with the Beardsleys she treated all 20 of them to a trip to Disneyland. ABC and Paramount Studios were so impressed with the film they gave the green light to the similarly themed The Brady Bunch show.
The same year, movie legend Doris Day made her final big-screen appearance in With Six You Get Egg Roll, a blended family story about a widow with three sons who marries a man with a daughter. The kids don’t see eye to eye, but soon figure out a way to live together. Released so soon after Yours, Mine and Ours, Eggroll got good reviews, but, as Roger Ebert wrote at the time, “would probably seem funnier if it didn’t suffer by comparison.”
Finally, Step Brothers is an R-rated look at extreme Peter Pan Syndrome. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play 40ish men who become bunkmates and reluctant stepbrothers when their parents (Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins) marry. The familiar reprimand “Grow up and act your age” fell on deaf ears with these guys. It’s like watching two overweight, foul-mouthed 10-year-olds with thinning hair going at each other, but it is good vulgar fun.
The storyline of “Killing Them Softly” sounds like something straight out of Martin Scorsese’s playbook but it is the execution (pun intended) that makes it a singular experience. The title may recall the name of Roberta Flack’s most famous song, but instead of being about metaphorical love, the movie is a cynical anti-thriller allegory about America’s economic crisis.
Set in the waning days of George W. Bush’s presidency, just as he passed the baton to Barack Obama in 2008, the movie begins with two small time crooks, Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) hired by crime boss Johnny Amato (Vincent Curatola) to hold up a secret, high-stakes poker game overseen by low level mobster Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta). The criminal corporation responsible for the game suspects Trattman, but brings in no-nonsense enforcer Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) to get to the bottom of the situation.
“Killing Them, Softly” isn’t your godfather’s gangster movie. Talky, deliberate and willfully obtuse, it is less a crime thriller than it is a wordy mediation on recession-era life in the underworld and beyond. The movie’s point-of-view is reinforced by wild sound news broadcasts that pepper the soundtrack and long conversations between Jackie and Driver (Richard Jenkins), a mouthpiece for the criminal organization who seems to be terminally tied up by red tape.
Their scenes and back-and-forth are the film’s most entertaining moments. The humdrum tone belies their conversation’s deadly subject matter and is played to great effect. And that is the beauty of this movie.
Director Andrew “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” Dominik’s visual flair keeps things interesting—a druggy conversation between Frankie and Russell is masterfully represented—but it is the actors who provide the spark.
Liotta brings real pathos to Markie the unfortunate scapegoat and McNairy and Mendelsohn both have a small time reek about them but as strong as they are, its Pitt, Jenkins and James Gandolfini who will linger in your memory.
Jenkins is an anonymous bureaucrat, a cog in the wheel that helps his criminal organization go round, and underplays the role beautifully. The temptation may have been to dirty the character up a bit, but Jenkins plays him straight as a man whose business dirty, but a business nonetheless.
Gandolfini is as wild as Jenkins is buttoned-down. A hitman for hire, he’s more interested in call girls and booze than killing people. It’s hard not to see echoes of Tony Soprano in this troubled killer, but Gandolfini is too skilled to repeat himself. His menace is tempered by self-doubt, and his scenes with Pitt shine.
At the helm, however, is Pitt. Heralded to screen by Johnny Cash’s “When The Man Comes Around,”—”There’s a man going round taking names / And he decides who to free and who to blame.”—he’s a pragmatic psychopath, a ruthless killer who doesn’t like the up-close-and-personal stuff. “I like to kill them softly,” he says. “From a distance; not close enough for feelings.” It’s a complex character, one defined in this movie by his words and not his actions, and Pitt handles it effortlessly.
“Killing Them Softly” won’t be for everyone. More brains than brawn it is about the tension of knowing what’s coming next, and while it does deliver in its violent scenes, it is a film that values ideas more than action. It’s edgy stuff, well handled by Dominik—although using the Velvet Underground song “Heroin” to intro an injection scene seems too standard for a movie like this—but will leave many viewers wondering when Brad Pitt will lose the art house pretentions and get back into the blockbuster business.
