Killing Them Softly

Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly (US, 2012) - A routine, even mundane crime story relayed in tones of world-weary fatigue, "Killing Them Softly" deglams the mob movie to coolly distinctive if rarely pulse-quickening effect. 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. Results are at once a bit pretentious and worth savoring by those who don't mind a low-octane approach, spelling moderate B.O. for the fall Weinstein Co. release, though a well-cast Brad Pitt could enhance its prospects.