Killing Them Softly is a hitman allegory about the Great Recession

Charleston City Paper | November 28, 2012
Killing Them Softly, the new crime caper thriller from writer/director Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford), is set in 2008, during the height of the panic over the U.S. financial collapse and the run-up to Barack Obama's election. I mention this because you might miss that crucial bit of subtext if you're not paying close attention to the excerpts from Obama's election-night speech that are included during the jaggedly edited opening sequence. Or during the centerpiece heist sequence. Or five minutes later when someone has the car radio on. Or pretty much every time anyone in this movie is listening to a radio or watching a television.

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