Killing Them Softly

One of the most anticipated films at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Andrew Dominik's immensely gripping and brutal world of recession-hit criminals, starring Brad Pitt, is smart and nasty, with a political dimension, too.

Two petty criminals - who think they have a no-risk plan - are recruited to rob a high stakes, Mob-protected poker game causing the local criminal economy to collapse. Brad Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, the enforcer hired to track down the culprits and restore order, in his own unique way.

The stellar cast includes Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), James Gandolfini (The Sopranos), Ray Liotta (GoodFellas), Scoot McNairy (Monsters), Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom) and Vincent Curatola (The Sopranos). Written for the screen and directed by Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), the film is based on George V. Higgins 1974 novel, Cogan's Trade, updated to the Bush/Obama handover era of 2008.

Killing Them Softly is a slick ensemble-nightmare of middle-management mobster brutality and incompetence in the tradition of Goodfellas and Casino, Pulp Fiction and TV's The Sopranos.