It’s 2008, and the economy has collapsed. As Obama’s inspiring speeches about change and hope blast from every television and radio, gangsters and hit-men prowl empty streets in search of work – the unacknowledged victims of the financial crisis. In a bar, Brad Pitt stands goateed and angry, negotiating the price of an assassination with a low-balling client. He snorts at Obama’s assertion that America is a community that needs to stick together. “America’s not a country, it’s a business,” he sneers to his companion. “Now fucking pay me.”
Loosely adapted from George V. Higgins’ novel Cogan’s Trade, Andrew Dominik’s grim critique of capitalism isn’t aiming for subtlety. Everything, from the vicious murders to the brilliantly black comedy, drips with humorous but hard-hitting cynicism. Like Pitt’s character, Dominik shoots to kill.
Pitt is Jackie, a smooth and smart-assed hit-man called in when a hold-up becomes complicated, and no-one else seems up for the job. Partner Mickey (James Gandolfini) has become a depressed, alcoholic liability. The once-intimidating Markie (Ray Liotta) openly weeps and vomits as his jawbone and ribs are smashed by interrogators. Small-timer Frankie (Scoot McNairy) has a moral dilemma about being the getaway driver for a hit. Jackie tuts. “What’s the world coming to?”
This is a world where the only female is a whore – and morally, the men are too. Money, Dominik repeatedly shows us, makes good people do bad things.
With stunning visual flourishes like slow-motion murders that become rain-soaked, blood-bursting, glass-shrouded dances, and close-ups of the pulsating iris of a heroin addict after a fix, Dominik’s film proves a nasty and gripping beauty.