In 2012, filmmaker Andrew Dominik released the follow-up to his critically acclaimed film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; its name, Killing Them Softly. Unfolding during the 2008 Presidential election, this film tells the story of a hitman hired to tie up loose ends following the robbery of a high-stakes Mafia poker game.
At the time of its release, Killing Them Softly became a misunderstood failure in nearly every sense of the word, one that earned the rarest of cinematic audience scores and almost burnt down all the goodwill its relatively novice filmmaker had made for himself. If Killing Them Softly is remembered for anything today, it’s for being one of the final movies to feature former The Sopranos star James Gandolfini in a fascinating role as the down-and-out former mob hitman, Mickey Fallon.
What Is Killing Them Softly About?
America’s Not a Country, It’s a Business, Man
Coming off the heels of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, critics and audiences didn’t know what director Andrew Dominik would do next, and what they wound up getting in Killing Them Softly was like nothing anyone expected. A collage of noir-ish atmosphere, nonstop dialogue, morally corrupt characters, and a soundtrack comprised of early pop and Jazz, Killing Them Softly is many things yet remains frustratingly difficult to describe.
On the surface, Killing Them Softly is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’s novel, Cogan’s Trade, and this powerful, politically charged story was received with both open arms and a closed fist, depending upon who watched it. To be completely honest, the majority of the audience fell into the latter category. In fact, the emotional reaction to watching Killing Them Softly was so visceral for so many people that it earned the dubious (dis)honor of an “F” audience rating from CinemaScore, making it just one of 22 movies ever to receive such a rating.
Set in 2008, Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) play two drifters enlisted by Johnny “Squirrel” Amato (Vincent Curatola) to hold up a high-stakes mafioso poker game hosted by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta). Squirrel is of the belief that the mob will ultimately blame the braggadocious Trattman for the incident, allowing the rest of them to get off scot-free. What these three men didn’t account for was the mob hiring a cynical enforcer by the name of Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) to investigate the robbery and punish those responsible.
Along the way, Cogan requests backup from another hitman he has worked with previously: Mickey Fallon, played by the legendary actor James Gandolfini. Mickey’s enigmatic presence in the film’s story and Gandolfini’s incredible rendering of his performance has since become one of Killing Them Softly’s most intriguing subplots, and much of that has to do with the tragedy surrounding the actor’s death.
What Happened to James Gandolfini Shortly After Killing Them Softly Was Released?
His Goodbye To Gangster Pictures Turned Into His Goodbye to All of Us
A native of New Jersey, James Gandolfini held a series of odd jobs before becoming one of America’s most treasured actors, including as a truck driver, bouncer, and nightclub manager in New York. Somewhere along the way, he attended a series of acting classes with a friend and got hooked on the art. In 1992, he made his Broadway debut in a revival of A Streetcar Named Desire alongside Alec Baldwin and Jessica Lange. The very next year, he played a brutal, philosophy-quoting hitman in Quentin Tarantino’s screenplay of True Romance, directed by Tony Scott.
That role, in turn, paved the way for James Gandolfini to nab the lead role in HBO’s The Sopranos, a gangster family epic that ran for six seasons starting in 1999. Largely regarded as one of the best television series ever made, Gandolfini’s incredible and nuanced performance as Tony Soprano was a big reason for the show’s success and led to him taking home the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series no less than three times.
Following the conclusion of The Sopranos in 2007, for the most part, James Gandolfini refrained from appearing as a criminal in gangster-related thrillers as a way to distance himself from the Tony Soprano character and not retread similar themes he had already explored. However, when the opportunity to star in Killing Them Softly came around, Gandolfini decided this was the right role for one last stand as the “mob guy,” due in large part to how tortured the character is. He told Nightline,
“I’ve done a bunch of these guys and this is kind of the final nail in the coffin. This is where you are at the end.”
Tragically, at that time, James Gandolfini didn’t realize how prophetic those words truly were. In June 2013, a little over six months after the release of Killing Them Softly, James Gandolfini died of a fatal heart attack. At the time, he was visiting Rome to take part in the Taormina film festival in Sicily. Shortly after that, friends and colleagues expressed both shock and heartbreak, with The Sopranos’ creator David Chase telling TMZ.com,
“[James] was a genius. Anyone who saw him even in the smallest of his performances knows that. He is one of the greatest actors of this or any time. A great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes.”
David Chase was (unsurprisingly) right. But what’s really important to note here is how James Gandolfini’s incredible performance as Mickey Fallon was the perfect microcosm for everything that this astonishing actor did so damn well.
How Does Killing Them Softly Cement James Gandolfini’s Legacy as one of the Greatest Actors of All Time?
By Showcasing Everything the Actor Did Better Than Anyone Else
When Andrew Dominik first reached out to James Gandolfini to gauge his interest in the role of Mickey Fallon, the former Tony Soprano was a tough sell. Having already played one of the genre’s definitive archetypes, Gandolfini wasn’t sure he had anything left to give or anything new to say. After reading the script and discovering just how tragic a character Mickey was, Gandolfini changed his mind. And we’re all the beneficiaries of this decision.
James Gandolfini only stars as Mickey Fallon in two scenes in Killing Them Softly, and, as it turned out, that’s all he needed to blow us away. In the first of his two scenes, Gandolfini’s Mickey sits in a New Orleans restaurant alongside Brad Pitt’s Cogan, knocking back an alarming amount of alcohol while complaining about the myriad of ways in which his life has gone sour. The man’s see-sawing between self-pity and resignation is breathtaking to behold, and it becomes quickly apparent to Cogan that this is no longer the same man he once held in such high regard.
Later in the film, Cogan searches Mickey out once again, finding him in a hotel room. On this night, Mickey is too drunk to do much of anything, especially carry out the hit he’s been assigned. Mickey is embarrassed by his uselessness, but it’s this very uselessness that’s the point of the character. Like many other Gandolfini roles, the strength in this performance all comes from the eyes. Situated behind Mickey’s tinted glasses, Gandolfini is constantly shifting his line of sight while trying to focus through a glaze of alcohol. Mickey is a character who has arrived at the tail-end of his life, and what’s worse, he knows it.
This allusion is, of course, made all the more heartbreaking by knowing what happened next in real life. Just a few short months later, James Gandolfini died, having passed on far too young at the age of 51. Killing Them Softly wasn’t the last picture he ever starred in; that honor belongs to posthumous releases like the romantic drama Enough Said and the thriller The Drop. Still, the role of Mickey Fallon offered Gandolfini one last chance to provide an epilogue to his take on the battered and entrenched mafioso. In doing so, he offered a heartbreaking glimpse into the only way such a story might realistically end: sad and alone.
It’s a crude and cynical point, to be sure, but it underscores the theme of Killing Them Softly, namely that America is not a country but a business — a business where men like Mickey Fallon have their use right up until they don’t anymore. The same could potentially be said about Hollywood actors. However, where Mickey Fallon and James Gandolfini’s stories differ is that the latter’s contributions to American art and culture will never be forgotten.
