As a passionate gamer, I‘m attracted to works with stylish execution, quality writing, and complex narratives. Director Andrew Dominik’s 2012 crime thriller “Killing Them Softly” delivers on all fronts. Visually stunning and packed with scathing social commentary, it has earned a cult following despite struggling commercially on release. Peeling back its graphic external layer reveals a captivating allegory on the 2008 financial crisis and enduring pitfalls in the capitalist system.
A Tour de Force Neo-Noir Experience
“Killing Them Softly” exemplifies novelistic cinema at its finest. Set against New Orleans’ seedy underbelly, viewers are thrust into the grungy world of underground poker dens and contract killers. Cinematographer Greig Fraser amplifies a neo-noir atmosphere with dark palettes and low lighting in scenes veiled by filthy rain or shrouded in shadowy warehouses. The dazzling camerawork alternates between kinetic tracking shots tailing characters and abrupt smash zooms into violence. Dominik and sound designer Leslie Shatz meticulously amplify realistic textures – the scrape of shovels scooping cash off wet floors or bone-chilling squelches as knives penetrate flesh.
As expected in high-caliber filmmaking, the ensemble cast fully immerses into roles oozing moral decay. Scoot McNairy as naive loser Frankie and Ben Mendelsohn as scraggly junkie Russell nail the amateurish incompetence of wannabe robbers in over their heads. James Gandolfini delivers a swansong performance as Mickey, portraying the dinosaur middleman clinging desperately to his place in the dying order.
Most riveting is Brad Pitt’s turn as cynical hitman Jackie. His contemplative manner masks sheer professionalism for enforcing contracts. I’m reminded of video game protagonists like Hitman’s Agent 47 – ice-cold assassins bound strictly to their missions’ objectives. As Jackie sets out methodically to “kill them softly”, Dominik elevates a B-movie premise into an artfully constructed commentary.
2008 Crisis – CDOs, Conflicts of Interest and Deregulation
I research extensively into works‘ real world contexts – when unveiled, Dominik’s intended allegory depicts acute parallels to events precipitating the 2008 global financial crisis. By 2008, regulators asleep at the wheel allowed excessive risk-taking in banking around subprime mortgages. The housing boom saw millions of shoddy home loans issued to high-risk owner-occupants made possible by exotic financial tools like CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) that earned banks huge profits. Rating agencies further failed to price these instruments accurately.
Ultimately, the music stopped with mass defaults, triggering a worldwide economic meltdown considered the worst since the Great Depression. Spillovers led to massive stock declines and liquidity evaporation even in sophisticated institutions like Lehmann Brothers, which declared history’s largest bankruptcy on September 15th 2008. The whole fiasco centered on the same sins – greed,opaqueness and inadequacy of oversight.
Just as loose lending standards and inaccurate credit ratings inflated catastrophe in finance, the card game heist in "Killing Them Softly" succeeds due to the criminal economy‘s existing loopholes. Games organizer Markie (Ray Liotta) previously robbed his own events to fund them. This breakdown of trust mirrors real instances like Goldman Sachs designing products to fail for client profits. Later, Jackie must address the consequences of oversight failures and ethical transgressions.
| Real World Event | Film Allegory |
|---|---|
| Mass defaults on high-risk Subprime Mortgages | Amateur heist robbing Markie‘s poker game |
| Banks bundling toxic loans into CDOs, sold falsely as AAA by ratings agencies | Markie openly staging past robberies of his own games |
| Investor trust disappearance | Games halted over players losing confidence |
| Lehmann collapse freezing capital markets | Criminal economy seizing up, "no games, no business" |
| Gov interventions (TARP, Stimulus) to restart lending | Contracting Jackie to "kill them softly" and revive games |
Restoration Imperatives – Obama‘s Heavy Burden
Throughout hisHandling instructions, Jackie voices the sheer frustrations of fixing failed frameworks designed by others. We gleam echoes of Obama wrestling the greatest economic crisis since the Depression handed over by the previous Bush administration.
One prominent example – his rant to Driver highlighting the payoff restrictions he faces under new rules, despite past presidents exercising discretion on comparable missions. This aligns with critcisms over Obama‘s early stimulus packages lagging the scale of response needed due to political constraints and concessions he made with Republicans.
Jackie: You‘re givin‘ me fences. You‘re givin‘ me conditions. Mitchell‘s getting a free fuckin‘ ride. I‘m doin‘ all the work!
The questionable tasks required overwhelms Jackie like Obama burdened to coordinate enormous bailouts despised by many as rewarding failure. Such self-doubt humanizes Jackie from a video game-esque hitman into a brooding protagonist weighed down by external chaos.
Symbiotic Ties – Financiers as Money Men, Gov Sets Rules
Dominik further extends financial crisis similarities through the unvarnished government-business partnership depicted. Jackie checks in withcoordinator Driver inside a grimy warehouse lined wall-to-wall with trash. Driver readily furnishes contract killing plans handed from government sources on one end while happily drowning in dirty cash literally flooding the warehouse floor on the other, affirming authorities’ reliance on dealers like himself to handle finances.
It blatantly showcases the revolving doors between Wall Street and Washington. We need look no further than ex-Goldman Sachs banker Steven Mnuchin serving as Trump‘s Treasury Secretary overseeing banking rules he spent decades opposing. Similar dynamics seen during the crisis response see big banks and funds administration each bailout dollar while paying themselves bonuses shortly after.
Restoring Confidence – Hits as Stabilizing Interventions
With the economy paralyzed, Jackie crucially explains the killings must happen just for restored consumer confidence, not actual problem-solving. This aligns with the crisis interventions‘ overarching aim – restarting lending and spending via public assurance alone that stability returns.
Jackie: I‘m livin‘ in America, and in America, you‘re on your own. America‘s not a country. It‘s just a business. Now fuckin‘ pay me.
In a pivotal scene, Jackie strides away against a broadcast of Obama‘s election night victory speech proclaiming hope and change for the nation. This juxtaposition insinuates promised reforms never matching reality. Like Obama vowing stricter financial regulation, Jackie‘s hits only superficially boost confidence preventing further robberies but ignoring the system‘s core flaws. Players diving back into games facing unchanged risks represents Americans resuming excess leveraged spending that triggered crisis in the first place.
Impartial Social Commentary with Disconcerting Messaging
While some suggest anti-Democrat biases, Dominik himself stresses no political fingerpointing. His interviews instead convey deep disappointment over bipartisan failure reining in finance after the crippling 2008 episodes demanding reform.
In Dominik‘s own words: “We went into a major economic crisis caused by incredible greed, and ever since we’ve been yelling at each other about big government and small government. It’s basically irrelevant.”
This assertion materializes through Driver‘s haunting line underscoring capitalist amorality:
“America’s not a country. It’s just a business."
It distills society devolved into solely prioritizing money above ethical or patriotic concerns – an indifferent machine blindly facilitating flows between corporations and government. The seedy assassin backdrop foregrounds the ugly yet glamorized means that sustain this fiscal ecosystem.
Lasting Risk Reminders
Over a decade later, Dominik’s veiled warnings stand eerily prescient. Recent inflation hazards rekindled global uncertainty despite years stretched low interest rates aimed forestalling such threats. Studies show post-2008 reforms only curbed 20% of systemic risk factors that legal loopholes continue allowing unfettered risk-taking. Efforts repositioning finance to benefit public good remain minimal. The allegory hence serves an unsettling reminder that deep financial system fragility lingers years later for future reckoning.