I have a soft spot for crime fiction films. Specifically, I like films that focus on the smaller, seemingly less important criminal figures. I’m not that interested in the godfather. I’m not that interested in an Oceans 11 type criminal mastermind. I like films that focus on the small fry. These characters are working stiffs that just happen to have chosen crime as their career.
There are three such films that I have a special affinity for. I’m talking about The Town (2010), Killing Them Softly (2012), and The Drop (2014). Other than coming out within four years of each other, they do have some similarities.
First of all, all three films bring major star power. The Town, directed by Ben Affleck, stars Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper, and Blake Lively (that is an amazing cast). The Drop stars Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, and James Gandolfini. Killing Them Softly stars Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini (again! and sadly, in his last role), Ray Liotta, Sam Shepard, and the always good if underrated Richard Jenkins.
Secondly, all three films are based upon works by famed crime novelists. The Town is based upon Chuck Hogan’s Prince of Thieves. Killing Them Softly is based upon George V Higgins’ (Higgins, with his amazing ear for tough guy dialog, is probably my all time favorite crime novelist) Cogan’s Trade. Finally, The Drop is based upon Dennis Lehane’s short story Animal Rescue. Starting with good source material seems to be an important prerequisite for awesome crime films.
Killing Them Softly and The Town are all set in Boston. The Town in the film title refers to the Boston neighborhood Charlestown. The Drop is technically based in Brooklyn but Lehane is famously from Boston and many of his crime novels, especially his early ones, are set in Boston. Even though set in Brooklyn, to me The Drop has the look and feel of a Boston neighborhood, so I’m going to go ahead and say that Boston is another common theme amongst the three. Sorry not sorry.
The plot of all three films involve players being swept up by even bigger players. In The Town, a gang of bank robbers is forced by the local crime boss named, somewhat incongruously, The Florist, to try to rob Fenway Park. In The Drop, a local tavern is used as the collection point (eg the drop) for gambling bets. When robbers come in and steal the drop money, the Chechen crime boss makes the guys that work at the tavern responsible for getting the money back. In Killing Them Softly, a minor crime figure gets the brilliant idea of robbing a mafia run poker game. The mafia syndicate, not amused, hires a hit man to track the robbers down.
None of the films were particularly financially successful. The Town, since directed by Affleck, probably got a bit more of a studio push. Accordingly, it did make a profit. The Drop received generally favorable reviews but it didn’t seem like it had much studio support. It at best maybe broke even. Killing Them Softly did not get great reviews at release (although some critics have come around since) and did not come close to making its money back during initial release.
Given all of that, how do these films compare? Before I go there, I do want to say that I enjoy watching all of these films. I’ve watched all three of them several times.
Of the three, my least favorite is The Town. By far, the best part of the film is the relationship between Affleck’s character (Doug) and Renner’s character (Jem). Raised together, they have a tight sibling relationship. Doug is cerebral while Renner is a maniac. Doug wants out while Renner pretty clearly wants to go out in a blaze of glory like a Jimmy Cagney character. Their relationship can be summed up by one of the most famous lines in the film:
Doug: I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we’re gonna hurt some people.
Jem: …Whose car are we gonna’ take?
The film works for me as long as the film focuses on the deep, complex, yet fraying relationship between Doug and Jem. For me, where it falls down a bit is in the Fenway Park robbery scene. It goes on way too long and is simply over the top. For that period of time, the film weirdly changes gears from a character study to a Michael Bay type action film.
I really loved The Drop. Hardy, Gandolfini, and Rapace all do outstanding work. Even though violent, this is a purely character driven film. Gandolfini is the over the hill wannabe washout looking for one more score. Rapace, living in a world full of dangerous men, is necessarily distrustful. Hardy does really outstanding work. When you first meet him, he appears almost simpleminded. He seems to be an innocent in a world of violence. Only as the film edges towards its climax do you understand how much you’ve underestimated Hardy’s character.
If I loved The Drop, I’m even more enthralled with Killing Them Softly. I’m somewhat amazed that critics gave it such short shrift when it first came out. Released in 2012, it unspools its plot in the economic breakdown of 2008. As these characters struggle to make their way in life, you hear the background news reports of our country doing the same.
The acting in this film is even more amazing than in The Drop. Here, Gandolfini is a New York hit man who has lost his nerve and is losing himself in the bottle. Jenkins is a mafia middle man lawyer who speaks, hilariously, in the jargon of corporate, bureaucratic middle management. Brad Pitt, proving once and for all that he’s actually a character actor in a leading man’s body, is coldly brutal as Cogan, the hitman brought in to clean up the mess. He’s the best fixer since The Wolf in Pulp Fiction.
The dialog is simply amazing. As I said above, Higgins is renowned for his dialog. Sometimes as I read one of his novels, I lose track of the plot just because I get caught up in the ruthless beauty of what his tough guys are saying. Not only is the dialog ruthless, but it’s often hilarious. I don’t know how much of Higgins’ dialog was actually directly used in the film, but they definitely caught the spirit of the novel. Many scenes in the film have a dark edge of comedy around them.
Here’s a subset of dialog that captures what I’m trying to say:
Jackie Cogan : You ever kill anyone?
Driver : No.
Jackie Cogan : It can get touchy-feely.
Driver : Touchy-feely?
Jackie Cogan : Emotional, not fun, a lot of fuss. They cry. They plead. They beg. …
Jackie Cogan : I like to kill them softly, from a distance. Not close enough for feelings. Don’t like feelings.
Picture a hitman explaining this to a mafia middle management suck-up, and if you think that’s funny, then this is a film for you.
There you go. If you’re bored some night and looking for a film to watch, those are three films that I’d highly recommend.
dorkenstein 