After the gorgeous transcendence of The Assassination of Jessie James, there was a weird critical disappointment with director Andrew Dominik's follow-up. Killing Them Softly was too obvious, too thin, they all said. And its bleak view of America - as a place that can never be a community - was just a bit too much.
Which is all complete madness, because it's such a good summation of where America was and is heading, full of professional, cold men getting what they can; and other pros who turn out to be painfully incompetent and can't even get out of bed; and complete fuck-ups who try to get what they can, but always screw the pooch.
It's looking better every year, as the country slowly tears itself apart in political fuckery and a complete inability to do anything about its hopeless inequities. Few other films of the past 10 years have captured this feeling like this one, and even though it is set during Obama's first days as President, the sheer helplessness of most of its characters feels like a cross-section of the country in 2020.
Because Cogan's final lines in the film have never felt more painfully true. America is not a community. It's just a business. Now fucking pay him.
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