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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 12/19/2012 : 10:41:59
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Norse, Greek, Hebrew, Chinese and other captivating world mythologies have based political tales on recognizable human behavior. Such parables have for millennia been effective tools combining education and entertainment.
It'll be interesting to see if there's a significant difference in US/other critical reaction to Andrew Dominik's witty and brutal film. Most US critics are dissing its "too simplistic" comparisons between petty organized crime and global fiscal mis-management.
One of the consequences of the economic traumas of the last decade - consequences which continue to anger and crush us wherever we are - is the grudging acknowledgement that cracks in the dominant system have developed into wounds which traditional band-aids can no longer cover.
It's especially tough for people from societies which are primarily responsible both for instigating and perpetuating those brutal policies, to analyze the whys and hows and what's-nexts. They've tried to be so loyal. They've tried to play by the rules. So how come they've woken up with a black eye and a knife in the back.
People want to escape, as they always do when threatened. Sometimes they run. Sometimes they get shit-faced. Sometimes they tell stories. And sometimes they do all of the above.
Creative artists - recently restricted in shaping contemporary events into a populist package - increasingly want their more analytic stories to reach even those escapees.
Antipodean Dominik has attempted that with a powerful film that's posing far-from-simplistic parallels between global and private decisions and demons.
To reach a cine-audience saturated with fairy-tales/vid games of bullets and blood, the film beckons with familiar screen faces. This familiarity makes us feel grounded, comfortable. We think we know them, but we don't.
Dominik chooses from show-biz and real-life politics.
The latter provide a verbal backing-track mouthing the kind of platitudes the US electorate seem to crave - and just about as politically astute as the cast of Glee.
The fictional action is juxtaposed in a familiar tale of betrayal by one set of morally-deficient troglodytes over another. Some of these bozos become personally involved, others do their dirty deeds with dis-interest, carrying out orders from rarely seen overlords whom they pretend to know.
Why do they do it? Why does anyone choose a distasteful path of moral decrepitude? We're all whores and slaves unless we're the puppeteers dispensing the cash. And that's one definition of power, top-doggedness. Woof woof!
Pitt plays Jackie Cogan with the easy confidence of a top-notch conman. You can't kid a kidder. And Cogan is on to all the bullshit around him, whether from wanna be presidents or has-been hitmen wallowing in booze.
"America's a business," he menaces the middle-man who's trying to reneg on the contract. "Now pay me!"
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Killing Them Softly
