Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik, 2012)

[warren oates]

One other minor beef I had with this film and with Zemeckis' Flight is that both films used the least original of tracks in scenes depicting characters shooting up heroin. The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge," in Flight and the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" here. In my opinion, really poor track selection that distracted me from the scenes and remind that I was watching a Hollywood production.

Yes. You might expect a choice like that from Zemeckis, godfather of the over literal soundtracking of motion picture moments (see Forrest Gump). The other track I hated that I was hinting at was

Spoiler

"Love Letters" during a, guess what? Shooting! Wonder what director with the initials DL ever gave him that idea?

The rest of the music, even the similarly literal and overused in the trailer Johnny Cash song, is much better.

From what little you've written thus far it does feel a bit like your problem with this film is almost more about the novel and the script on which it's based than anything that follows after those two initial and admittedly important choices. Because it's hard for me to see how a much better film could have been made from the same material by anyone else or what major problems you have specifically with the direction.

that makes sense, but I don't know the novel (didn't realize it was based on one; love Eddie Coyle and the like-minded Nickel Ride)

my problem w/ the direction is that it was primarily concerned w/ these juvenile sensibilities of "cool" (let's film Brad blowing smoke in profile 19 more times!) and the dialogue scenes were wasted time w/ the characters trying to out-macho each other and the action scenes were slow and trite. Yes it's a complete bore of a story and an obvious, done-to-death depiction of capitalism as pathology, but both of things can at least be watchable if there's more originality like the credits and less mundanity - however thematic - in all the other scenes.

A number of things you're taking issue with are hard to discuss without referencing the novel and the adaptation. One of Higgins' most original contributions to the crime genre was to focus on the stories of foot soldiers caught in a web of poor decisions above their pay grade by a distant and mismanaged bureaucracy (of cons or of cops) -- like Le Carre in the spy genre at almost the same time. It's hard to see that now because his example has been absorbed (or ripped off) either directly or indirectly by everyone who came after, including Elmore Leonard, Quentin Tarantino and I'd argue Davids Simon and Chase. That's where the not so subtle (is it even supposed to be?) political context of Killing Them Softly fits in. The economic crisis and the bailout are presented as being distasteful but necessary emergency measures to restore public confidence. The people who caused the crash were not being punished. The big bosses of the country were supposed to be making the right decision for all of us, even they didn't seem to care about the fallout on the average Joe in whose interest they were supposedly acting or the ultimate cause of justice. There's a direct parallel between all those dubious politico talking heads' reasons/actions and the ones undertaken by the unseen bosses of the Jenkins and Pitt characters.

There's a reason that Higgins is one of David Mamet's favorite writers. Higgins dialogue scenes are never just about macho posturing but oh so much more by way of what seems at first like mere posturing. And though I'd say that the arc of the whole film didn't really surprise me, there are all sorts of little character moments within these scenes that do. The way that Gandolfiini's character or Liotta's character don't do what we expect them to at certain crucial moments. The Liotta in particular still seems fresh and funny to me. I've seen hundreds of scenes like the one where they come for him that first time, many in books/films that are Higgins derivative, but none in which a character

Spoiler

"prefers not to" quite so amusingly.

As for Dominik's trippy time dilation effects, sure some of them worked better in his two previous features. But to dismiss the visuals as merely derivative, on par with the "oeuvre" of somebody like Troy Duffy seems an almost deliberate misreading of this director's intentions and achievements.

[Matt]

Surprised to see people singling out the sound design for praise. I thought it was awful, a bunch of library sound effects used repeatedly and cranked up high in the mix.

[warren oates]

Surprised to see people singling out the sound design for praise. I thought it was awful, a bunch of library sound effects used repeatedly and cranked up high in the mix.

I don't even love the film all that much, but I have to ask you to say more specifically which effects were library/stock and how awfully they were mixed in more detail. Because I went with somebody who works in post production and knows some of the best and most creative sound mixers and editors in the business and she, for one, couldn't disagree more.

[Matt]

The punch/kick sound effects during the beating, the excessively loud cigarette-burning sounds when someone takes a drag, the squealing tires. Sounded like every overdone low-budget 90s action movie to me. I could be wrong that they're library/stock effects, but being wrong wouldn't make me appreciate them more. In fact, I'd be disappointed that someone put so much work into the sound design to get that result.

I didn't hate the movie, just thought it was merely okay with some very good dialogue.

[warren oates]

The punch/kick sound effects during the beating, the excessively loud cigarette-burning sounds when someone takes a drag, the squealing tires. Sounded like every overdone low-budget 90s action movie to me. I could be wrong that they're library/stock effects, but being wrong wouldn't make me appreciate them more. In fact, I'd be disappointed that someone put so much work into the sound design to get that result.

I suppose I'm surprised we didn't hear the same film, assuming we both saw it in theaters that were properly calibrated. The punch/kick effects in the beating didn't strike me as blazingly original (but arguably Raging Bull level different was not called for in this scene), but they were impressively visceral. The most important sounds for me in the beating scene are the quieter follow-up sounds -- the mix of rasps, gasps, breaths, sucking, spitting. All of that was very well done and didn't sound cliched to me. Likewise there were subtler and more creative choices where I didn't expect to find them, such as the background chatter and ambience in that first restaurant scene with Gandolfini.

Here are the guys who actually designed the fight scene on why/how it sounds as it does in the NYT.

[zedz]

One other minor beef I had with this film and with Zemeckis' Flight is that both films used the least original of tracks in scenes depicting characters shooting up heroin. The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge," in Flight and the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" here. In my opinion, really poor track selection that distracted me from the scenes and remind that I was watching a Hollywood production.

Yes. You might expect a choice like that from Zemeckis, godfather of the over literal soundtracking of motion picture moments (see Forrest Gump).

I think the heavyweight champion for this is Schnabel's Basquiat, where it seemed like every over-familiar song choice was selected simply because of how baldly the title and / or lyrics described the action on-screen, even when the music itself was completely inappropriate. Basquiat's work begins to give him a public profile? Public Image Ltd's "Public Image"! Basquiat is waiting for a friend? The Rolling Stones' "Waiting for a Friend"! Basquiat starts taking drugs, while the audience is thinking "don't! don't do it!"? "White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)"!

It was like the Bill Friedkin commentary track of film scores.

[FakeBonanza]

I, too, loved the opening. Looking back on it, though, that may be my favourite part, which is unfortunate.

I thought there were some terrific shots in the movie, but i found that Dominik relied to heavy on coverage during the dialogue scenes. The movie relies so heavily on these scenes that I wish I'd gotten a better sense of interaction between the characters. I would've liked to have seen him let the actors go at some point in these scenes. I also didn't care much for the hyper-stylized sequences. I thought the one involving drug use did contribute something to the scene, but I found the other major example to be inconsistent with the tone of the film.

Spoiler

In contrasting the execution of Marky with the killings of the Johnny Amatto and Frankie, I thought the latter two were truer to the grittiness of the movie.

The political parallels were heavy-handed at times, even without the constant radio and TV chatter. The inclusion of those broadcasts was often overwhelming. That being said, I did really like the ending. It could have done without the inclusion of the TV broadcast, but that was the one moment when I was able to accept it.

I did like the film; however, I love Jesse James, and I was hoping to love this just as much. As a result, I found myself disappointed.

[Finch]

Reverse Shot pans the film and I agree with pretty much most of it, save their opinion that Jesse James is a dreadful film (I am rather fond of it).

[JabbaTheSlut]

Despite the aforementioned too obvious music choices(, which didn't bother me, a non-english speaker, that much/at all (my lack of understanding doesn't of course mean that there is no truth in the claims)), the film is, in my opinion, the best crime movie since Jackie Brown. A tough, ugly film to its bone. And the visuals (all the crappy anamorphic lenses with lousy definition, distorted images, reflections in dirty surfaces), the sound design consiting of electronic, compressed, distorted sounds (the world of the films sound like a machine out of order) reflecting the corruption, rotting of the world, wonderfully. The ending is pitch perfect. A film of/for our times. And a much better film than Dominik's previous, clumsy western.. The Bush/ Obama stuff running in parallel with the story and even commenting certain scenes is not something I'd call heavyhandedness, I think it's just blunt black humor.

[TheDudeAbides]

Having read the criticisms on here, even some things that I know will likely really bother me when watching the film, I must say I'm still excited to see this film. I know trailers are poor representations of the film, but from what I took out of the trailer and subsequent interviews and reviews was that this film was going to be somewhat in the style of Refn's Drive. The slow-motion shots I've seen coupled with what I've heard about the film's pacing, dialogue, ambiance and atmosphere was that it was almost like Drive. I'm not expecting it at all to be as incredible as I found Drive to be, but I'm hoping to find things out of this film that I'll enjoy. Going to see this either tonight or tomorrow, don't let me down Dominik

[mfunk9786]

It's nothing like Drive

[Cold Bishop]

Make no mistake: barring some career-ending mistake in the next few years, this will go down as minor Dominik, a b-side in what I hope will be a fruitful directing career. But despite its missteps, Killing Them Softly is still a film that proves that Dominik is true, natural filmmaker, and a lord knows there are few of them left. I'm not quite part of the Chopper cult, and I think The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is still at least a redux away from being a truly great film, so take that as you will. This isn't the film that's going to prove him as a great filmmaker, either. But my feelings at the end of the film are still mostly positive.

Let's get the politics out of the way: I think these people calling the film heavy-handed are probably overstating the importance of the political subtext more than Dominik ever intended. Like JabbaTheEmpoweredFemale, I found them to be less Western Union telegrams, more darkly humorous Greek chorus. And to be honest, I don't think a political allegory holds up here. For everything that scans well (the notion of Markie as a George W. figure, the public "sacrifice" that allowed the truly responsible backroom people to keep their power) there's something there that doesn't (The trio's role, as both the source of the economic collapse AND the blue-collar flunkies ground to a pulp by capitalism, simply muddles things up beyond recognition).

To me, the film works well enough as just a study of low-level criminals, criminals who aren't immune to the economic reality going on around them, but still functioning in their own self-contained world. And Domink excels at making a good old fashioned gangster film that is alternating grungy and stylish. Lots of people are complaining about the moments "of style" but I think they're unfair. The "advertising" sheen is simply an unavoidable part of digital, a still-ugly aesthetic that can only be made palatable by that sheen. As for the music cues, they didn't bother me at all.

Let's look at the two problem sections: I groaned about "Heroin" back when it was first announced months back, but I thought Dominik's use was surprisingly restrained for all the belly-aching: it lasts a few seconds, it uses only the instrumental portion, and, lets be honest, about 90%+ of the film's audience will have never, ever heard a Velvet Underground song. The ensuing scene is one of the few that struck me as too film-school flashy, but I got to give it to Dominik: he truly captures how irritating it is to try and hold a conversation with a junkie.

The one scene that did bother me was the drive-by shooting, but even then it wasn't for the music: the crime of using "Love Letters" has less to do with being heavy-handed and more with stepping on another film's musical territory. What bothered me was the use of CGI gore, which still bothers me to no end. Film already has enough problem trivializing and sexualizing violence without the added layer of making it look like a video game. If you can see the "strings", CGI fails, and this is only compounded with moments of bloodshed. Especially in a film with an uncharacteristic "street-level" aesthetic. If Dominik had to make a clever film reference, he would have been better served with Ennio Morricone's "Come Un Madrigale", whose cinematic counterpart could have also doubled as a lesson on how to pull off a slow motion car-wreck properly, without all that dehumanizing bullet-time nonsense. But maybe that's just me being an armchair filmmaker...

Of course, the separation between the criminal underworld and political upper-strata evaporates with final monologue, and that's the one point where the film finally came off as a bit smug. It's not that what Brad Pitt says is wrong, it's simply that the film seems to get to this conclusion through a loaded deck. This is a film that starts off in dirty, sordid all-consuming cynicism, and ends there, with little in the way of a dialectical challenge or complication to its own thesis. For better or worse, Dominik captures a cruel, unforgiving machine running in place, its cog-wheels never stopping regardless of anyone who may get caught in them. Unfortunately, his camera often seems stuck simply in the machine's motions. To me, it is only with the too-brief appearances of Liotta and Gandolfini, as two of the most pathetic gangsters ever captured on film, that the film opens up to some sort of feeling other than numbing pessimism. It is ultimately this lapse that relegates this to a minor film, expertly crafted physically, but lacking more than its share emotionally and intellectually.

Stray observation #1: Am I the only who noted some strange affinity between this film and Killer Joe? Despite its belated release, the Friedkin film has been around long enough Dominik could have seen it. It was the constant cut-aways to flashes of lightning that ultimately tipped me off, but there are other touches. The grungy, trashy Southern atmosphere. The pushing of the noir notion of small-time hoods in over their heads to new levels of effortless stupidity. The casting of Brad Pitt, using his matinee looks against his status as a black-leather clad figure of pure sinisterness. The completely immoral worldview, where everyone and everything is corrupted, varying not in morality but simply in intelligence. Even the film's ending, an unexpected smash-cut-to-black, culminating with a cheeky retro-R&B number (although Dominik can't match Friedkin's gleefully trashy selection). Of course, this film looks like a model of restraint compared to Friedkin and Lett's southern-fried hysteria. It's also probably not nearly as fun, even if they're both equally troubling in their all-consuming cynicism.

Stray observation #2: As far as the Australian Invasion goes, this film easily trounces John Hillcoat's Lawless. With that said, I can't help but wonder if both would have been better served swapping projects. Certainly, Dominik could have done the milieu and setting of Franklin County greater justice than Hillcoat did. Likewise, Hillcoat (and Cave) could have probably pushed this film to new levels of dirty, bone-crushing sordidness that may been enough to put it over the top.

Stray observation #3: The pans for this film keep trying to peg this as warmed-over Tarantino, a criticism that's not only inaccurate, but also shows an ignorance of Tarantino's indebtedness to George V. Higgins. With that said, watching this, I think I may have realized who has been the most Higgins-esque crime filmmaker of all: Nicolas Winding Refn. While they certainly lack the trademark dialogue, the Pusher films have probably captured the essence of Higgings more than anyone: crime as a blue-collar, boring workaday existence... but whose boredom only underscores how absolutely terrifying the life can become when something finally goes wrong, as it so easily can. The Pusher films, and not Drive, are really the better source of reference.

[JabbaTheSlut]

Well written, Cold Bishop. The Playlist review pretty much sums up my own feelings about the movie. Sans hyperbola (..."breathtakingly brilliant and admirably ambitious"...).

[flyonthewall2983]

I'm gonna have to let it sit in the old noggin for awhile, but I have to express some disappointment. It felt too slow in places (especially in regards to Gandolfini's character, though he did a fine job), and for a movie around 90 minutes that's a little astonishing that it can be done.

[Yojimbo]

I'll have to disagree with wigwam and domino. For me Andrew Dominik's Jesse James is the first authentic American Western since The Outlaw Josey Wales and oh so much more. For starters: A masterpiece of completely unique and inspired visual and genre mashery. A Victorian Western that feels like it was scripted by Peckinpah and directed by Sokurov.

So I came into Killing Them Softly with high expectations as a huge fan of Dominik's directorial talent and a fan of novelist George V. Higgins' work. Killing Them Softly did not disappoint. The film isn't a masterpiece because the material isn't all that ambitious to begin with. Higgins' books are about the travails of low level hoods and even a work like The Friends of Eddie Coyle only manages to reach tragic heights near the end and almost by accident.

Dominik starts the film off with aggressively avant garde titles -- that would be at home in a Godard picture -- as they interrupt the smooth flow of a slow-motion steadicam shot. The sound design is even more aggressive and odd from the start, so much so that I thought the sound system might be broken at first. Hearing this film in anything less than 5.1 won't accurately reflect the full range, spread and creativity of the sound mix. A number of scenes actually depend on the sound more than the image for their impact. There's a savage beating early on that would almost seem routine for this kind of picture if you watched it silently, but that sickens and disturbs with the highly specific sound of each blow landing and being felt.

The bulk of the scenes, as in any George V. Higgins work, are two person dialogue exchanges that Dominik does his best to animate. But there are other key moments of high visual and aural interest: A couple of beautifully staged killings and one scene of dreamy drug use. Though the music is a mixed bag: two needle-drop choices seem a bit on-the-nose to me; one even flagrantly Lynchian.

Dominik proves once again to have a great eye for casting and gets excellent performances all around from actors we've seen before and some we haven't. Stand outs for me include cameos by Sam Shepard and Max Casella and supporting turns by Richard Jenkins and James Gandolfini, the latter almost playing a "what if" version of Tony Soprano ten years older and burnt out on the gangster game.

Killing Them Softly is a minor work, but it's still so much more interesting than it would have been in just about anyone else's hands. You get the sense that Dominik could crank out a film this great once a year if he wanted, instead of banging his head against the wall trying to get something like Cities Of The Plain going for years. And maybe that's what he should be doing. Or perhaps he should take a cue from the Errol Morris and David Lynch playbooks and just direct a ton of TV commericals and use the money to shoot his own weird stuff on the side. Indeed, at times Dominik seems to be straining against the normalcy of the script, almost willfully urging himself into stranger moments of Lynchian darkness like the best bits in Chopper. I hope he'll permit himself to go fully into those places in a whole feature film someday.

I agree completely with you about 'Jesse James', and then there's the fact that it was so brilliantly edited that you hardly noticed the time passing. Not forgetting Brad Pitt's performance which comfortably outstripped Affleck's for me.
I love Higgin's 'Friends of Eddie Coyle' (esp. the book); you're probably right about how the film "only manages to reach tragic heights near the end", although I'm not sure about the "and almost by accident" bit. The film benefits greatly from Mitchum's joint-best ever performance, - the other being 'Farewel My Lovely', but Peter Boyle and Richard Jordan also made telling contributions, even if minor, and the film/story was more of a downbeat character study, anyhow.

When I heard about a Higgins' adaptation I held out hopes of Dominik doing for the crime story what he did for the Western, but then I heard all this talk about 'political sub-text', and how it intrudes repeatedly on the plot.
As with Harrison Ford in 'Widowmaker', so am I not a Sam Shepherd fan: he seems to feel the need to attach deep meaning to every half-glance as would a coquettish courtesan, looking to ensnare a suitor.
And what has James Gandolfini done since 'The Sopranos': nothing of significance that I'm aware of. I fear re-hash of past glories

[Professor Wagstaff]

As with Harrison Ford in 'Widowmaker', so am I not a Sam Shepherd fan: he seems to feel the need to attach deep meaning to every half-glance as would a coquettish courtesan, looking to ensnare a suitor.

If it's any consolation I think Sam Shepherd has about 30 seconds of screen time and wears sunglasses throughout it.

[Yojimbo]

As with Harrison Ford in 'Widowmaker', so am I not a Sam Shepherd fan: he seems to feel the need to attach deep meaning to every half-glance as would a coquettish courtesan, looking to ensnare a suitor.

If it's any consolation I think Sam Shepherd has about 30 seconds of screen time and wears sunglasses throughout it.

Well, that's that obstacle removed then.
No sign of it in Dublin, yet, though.
I wonder will it pass us by?

[stwrt]

It's almost like Killing Them Softly could have laid on the shelf for two years like the Jesse James movie.

It comes across as the kind of thing Tarantino could write if he ever grows up and steps outside of his movie-geek head stuffed with references to trash. In an early part it looks like the dust bowl America of indie films we don't usually get to see in a major Hollywood production. That guy who played the imprisoned dying mob boss in Sopranos puts in a class act in the opening scenes as a low-life fence.

I was kind of not looking forward to when Brad Pitt turned up because the non-celebs in the movie gave hugely impressive performances and he risked cramping their style. His role should have gone to another actor but Pitt presumably got it all green-lighted.

I havent read the George V Higgins novel it is based on but I know his highly-regarded series of crime novels is very dialogue-heavy, yak yak yak with the story exclusively told through the characters talking about what has happend, what could happen and the consequences of what did happen - so this brilliant movie is a good depiction of that. It's all about the talking, so much so you might feel like saying before Killing Them Softly has ended, "Will you shut the fuck up !?!"

[stwrt]

Even the political message supposedly contained within it isn't politics at all, it's all just another kind of the movie's yak, yak, yak Obama and Bush and Mccain on the TV airwaves, it's all part of the movie's torrent of talk, trying to sell you something, trying to get your buck, everyone in America is doing this including the Brad Pitt character, he just wants some of that cash out there. As someone says

Spoiler

it's a business.

The only way to get any peace from the yak is to smoke a spliff and all that yak will bounce off, that scene with the Oz guy is a huge recommendation to buy that spliff and chill out and not take part in all the crap.

We knew that, didn't we.

[TheDudeAbides]

The punch/kick sound effects during the beating, the excessively loud cigarette-burning sounds when someone takes a drag, the squealing tires. Sounded like every overdone low-budget 90s action movie to me. I could be wrong that they're library/stock effects, but being wrong wouldn't make me appreciate them more. In fact, I'd be disappointed that someone put so much work into the sound design to get that result.

I didn't hate the movie, just thought it was merely okay with some very good dialogue.

The over the top punching and kicking sounds during the Liotta beat down was actually something I found to be a creative choice, not the result of using bad stock foley sounds. It reminded of when Scorsese used animal sounds (tiger or lion roars i think) during the boxing match in Raging Bull, although not as unique or creative. I felt Dominik wanted to really call attention to the brutality of the beat down and emphasize it with overly loud and rough audio.

As far as the film goes though, now that I've seen it twice I quite like it. Dominik thoughts on America were a little bit too heavy handed and overt, and the film did not have a typical structure or pacing that you would expect to see, however, I still thought it was rather stylish and a good look into the monotonous life of low level gangsters and the American socio-economic system. 8/10

[Matt]

The over the top punching and kicking sounds during the Liotta beat down was actually something I found to be a creative choice, not the result of using bad stock foley sounds...I felt Dominik wanted to really call attention to the brutality of the beat down and emphasize it with overly loud and rough audio.

Which is what every low-budget, post-Tarantino '90s crime movie did, precisely why I found this film's use of sound so hackneyed.

[Yojimbo]

It's almost like Killing Them Softly could have laid on the shelf for two years like the Jesse James movie.

It comes across as the kind of thing Tarantino could write if he ever grows up and steps outside of his movie-geek head stuffed with references to trash. In an early part it looks like the dust bowl America of indie films we don't usually get to see in a major Hollywood production. That guy who played the imprisoned dying mob boss in Sopranos puts in a class act in the opening scenes as a low-life fence.

I was kind of not looking forward to when Brad Pitt turned up because the non-celebs in the movie gave hugely impressive performances and he risked cramping their style. His role should have gone to another actor but Pitt presumably got it all green-lighted.

I havent read the George V Higgins novel it is based on but I know his highly-regarded series of crime novels is very dialogue-heavy, yak yak yak with the story exclusively told through the characters talking about what has happend, what could happen and the consequences of what did happen - so this brilliant movie is a good depiction of that. It's all about the talking, so much so you might feel like saying before Killing Them Softly has ended, "Will you shut the fuck up !?!"

As a prelude to a possible viewing of 'Killing Them Softly', I bought a number of Higgins books, second-hand; I had previously only read Eddie Coyle.
I loved much of the dialogue in 'The Rat on Fire', although the plot was, at best, slight and obvious; 'The Digger's Game' was the best of the three, overall, although the dialogue wasn't as memorable as 'Rat'; the allegedly more 'mature' 'Kennedy for the Defense' I abandoned after about 60 pages or so. Its fair to say that he over-reached himself.

Its fair to say that I don't agree with whoever regards highly Higgins' series of crime novels, though I will check out the Dominik film, being a fan of his 'Jesse James'

[stwrt]

Its fair to say that I don't agree with whoever regards highly Higgins' series of crime novels, though I will check out the Dominik film, being a fan of his 'Jesse James'

I googled Higgins to see if anyone agreed with my verdict, found this among much other stuff on him.

"As is often the case with so called "hard-boiled" writers, Higgins’ literary reputation and popularity was stronger in Britain than in American, said USC English professor Dr. Matthew Bruccoli.

"He was an exceptional, perhaps the exceptional, postwar American political novelist," said Lord Grey Gowrie, chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain. "Like Patricia Highsmith, he (Higgins) is an American more appreciated, perhaps, in Britain and Europe than in his own country. I am delighted that the University of South Carolina has acquired his archive and that a major reassessment can now begin."

[Yojimbo]

Its fair to say that I don't agree with whoever regards highly Higgins' series of crime novels, though I will check out the Dominik film, being a fan of his 'Jesse James'

I googled Higgins to see if anyone agreed with my verdict, found this among much other stuff on him.

"As is often the case with so called "hard-boiled" writers, Higgins’ literary reputation and popularity was stronger in Britain than in American, said USC English professor Dr. Matthew Bruccoli.

"He was an exceptional, perhaps the exceptional, postwar American political novelist," said Lord Grey Gowrie, chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain. "Like Patricia Highsmith, he (Higgins) is an American more appreciated, perhaps, in Britain and Europe than in his own country. I am delighted that the University of South Carolina has acquired his archive and that a major reassessment can now begin."

Did you love 'Kennedy for the Defense', then?

[TheDudeAbides]

The over the top punching and kicking sounds during the Liotta beat down was actually something I found to be a creative choice, not the result of using bad stock foley sounds...I felt Dominik wanted to really call attention to the brutality of the beat down and emphasize it with overly loud and rough audio.

Which is what every low-budget, post-Tarantino '90s crime movie did, precisely why I found this film's use of sound so hackneyed.

Yeah, I get what you are saying, it has definitely been overdone by the likes of Guy Ritchie and other Tarantino followers, I'd probably include Refn in this group as well (even though he is much more talented than the rest of the post Tarantino-ers), however, what I enjoyed about it was just how contrasting it was compared to the remainder of the sound design, it really stuck out and emphasized the brutality of the scene. But yeah, I definitely see why you are sick of that particular stylistic choice