Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Dog Days [Blu-ray]

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie franchise continues to grow with Dog Days. That doesn?t mean it continues to mature, mind you. But fans of Jeff Kinney?s award-winning books and the films they inspire wouldn?t have it any other way.

The Movie:

Even fans of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books (a group to which my sons and I subscribe) have to be a little bit surprised that 20th Century Fox was able to squeeze a trilogy out of Jeff Kinney?s witty, observational, adolescent novels. The reason the franchise has been able to endure on screen, however, likely traces back to the initial casting made by executive producers long before the first reel of film was developed. Zachary Gordon, Devon Bostick, Steve Zahn and Rachael Harris are so perfectly attuned to characters on Kinney?s pages that we no longer think of the stick-figure caricatures which litter the author?s pages. We now think of the actors, and the touches they bring to each role.

That being said, this can?t go on much longer, right? With Dog Days, the third movie in the series, young Gordon looks like he?s ready for his freshman year at college, and not a middle-schooler still trying to figure out how to romance the sweetly innocent Holly Hills (Peyton List), tolerate his needy best friend (Robert Capron), and foil his older brother?s schemes at every turn. I?m not sure how Fox could continue with Wimpy Kid franchise without recasting the main leads, and, as stated above, that would be a devastating blow.

So, if this is the final adventure, what can fans expect? Well, school?s out for summer, and Greg (Gordon) wants to waste his days drinking soda, playing video games, and chasing Holly. Greg?s father (Zahn), has other plans, leading to a Three?s Company-inspired subplot about our lazy hero lying about having a job at a country club, where he runs up snack-bar tabs and causes all sorts of mild problems for all involved.

Dog Days bounces along under the steady guidance of director David Bowers, who helmed Rodrick Rules and comprehends what makes this series ? and the beloved characters ? tick. It?s silly and gross in all of the places that kids want it to be silly and gross, and there are just enough smarter-than-expected gags to keep parents emotionally and intellectually invested. This isn?t Pixar. But it isn?t pretending to be Pixar, and that matters.

It will be interesting to see where the Wimpy Kid films go from here. Because Fox has kept the budgets low, the films turn a profit, even though their overall grosses have gone down year to year. The movies might not survive. But Kinney just released The Third Wheel, the latest book in the long-running literary series, so fans can take solace that this won?t be goodbye for these characters, by any means.

The Disc:

Just like the film franchise, the Blu-ray disc for Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days has been lovingly crafted with Kinney?s fans in mind.

The video quality of the transfer is top-notch, though ?heat? in some spots makes for a grainy presentation. Director David Bowers isn?t shooting on 70mm. The Wimpy Kid movies often look one step up from an afterschool special, and Dog Days is no different. But it?s not aimed at film-school students, just at pre-teens looking for a laugh.

They?ll find the biggest laughs on a 5-minute gag reel, which has the young cast flubbing lines and breaking up takes with chuckles. Fans also will get a big kick out of ?Class Clown,? a three-minute animated cartoon that Kinney contributed to this Blu-ray documenting the further adventures of Greg, Rowley and the gang.

Those looking to dig a little deeper into the actual filmmaking process are advised to skip to the two-part ?Fox Movie Channel Presents Wimpy Empire,? which explores Kinney?s background and career. It gives an excellent example of the author?s day-to-day activities, and maps out the influence he has had on the youth-lit culture. (Hint: He?s massive.) Move from ?Wimpy Empire? to the audio commentary track and the 10 deleted scenes Fox has packed onto the Blu-ray. There?s even an alternate ending, which didn?t work as well as the one Bowers actually ran with.

The disc concludes with standard supplemental feartures, from a Dog Days trailer and promos for Fox movies to a BD-Live button that, at the moment, takes you to a site that doesn?t have content.

Starring: Zachary Gordon, Robert Capron, Rachael Harris, Steve Zahn, Devon BostickProduced by: Jeff Kinney, Jeremiah Samuels Written by: Maya Forbes, Wallace Wolodarsky

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Hyde Park On Hudson

Two years ago The King's Speech took an intimate and surprising look at an important historical figure, King George VI, and dug into his personal life to open a window onto a tumultuous time in history. King George VI, this time played by Samuel West instead of Colin Firth, appears again in Hyde Park On Hudson, which also attempts a light-hearted and personal revision of pre-World War II history. But even without a recent Oscar winner as an inevitable comparison, Hyde Park on Hudson flails terribly in its attempt to reveal new sides of our 32nd President, the King who came to visit him, and the quiet woman behind the scenes who witnessed it all.

The title refers to the childhood home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, played here in a convincing imitation by Bill Murray, who in the summer of 1939 spent as much time as possible in Hyde Park, under the doting wing of his mother (Elizabeth Wilson) and away from the prying eyes of Washington. Without much explanation he calls upon his fifth-cousin Daisy (Laura Linney) to pay him a visit, and the two begin a furtive sexual relationship, kicked off by a phenomenally awkward scene of a hand job given in a parked car. With Roosevelt's wife Eleanor (the beautiful Olivia Williams in a brutal wig) ever watchful things are hard enough for Daisy, but they get infinitely trickier when the Roosevelts invite King George VI and his wife Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) to become the first British monarchs ever to visit the United States.

Daisy has a termite's view of history as the house prepares for the arriving royalty, and her constant voiceover gives us the impression we might see this crucial summit through a keen new pair of eyes. But writer Richard Nelson, adapting his own play, abandons Daisy's point of view to poke into all kinds of closed rooms, from a late-night heart-to-heart between the President and King to the King's own bedroom, where the Queen is highly unamused by a series of cartoons depicting British soldiers like monkeys. Most of this is happening in a single night, while Daisy is off elsewhere, smoking cigarettes and mooning over the President privately, our lead character totally cut off from the potentially interesting comedy of manners happening in the main house.

The fact that the story's climactic moment revolves around whether or not the King will eat a hot dog tells you that Hyde Park on Hudson is not a serious drama of geo-political negotiation, but a little story about how personal insecurities and desires drive even the most powerful of men. That's certainly a valid view of history, but not a story Daisy is equipped to tell, and the movie feels constantly stuck between this secret romance (which is historically dubious anyway) and the actual history being made. Laura Linney gives a strong performance, as ever, but her chemistry with Murray is nonexistent, and while her later scenes with FDR's private secretary Marguerite LeHand (Elizabeth Marvel) have spark, both characters still remain tangential to the actual history Hyde Park on Hudson seems dead set on telling.

With lovely cinematography from Lol Crawley and a handful of strong individual scenes (FDR and George VI's late-night pow wow being one of them) Hyde Park On Hudson sometimes threatens to live up to its prestigious trappings. Then a scene of a Native American dance is played for laughs, or Daisy tells us something thunderingly obvious in voiceover, and the wheels start wobbling again. Too bad for Murray and what could have been a glide to another Oscar nomination, but this is a bit of awards bait in a crowded season that's very easy to leave alone.

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Francis Ford Coppola 5-Film Collection [Blu-ray]

A Francis Ford Coppola Blu-ray set with nary a Godfather film? Not an issue, since two films in the five-disc set are masterpieces that justify the purchase price for this pristine collection.

The Movie:

Lionsgate cheats, slightly, with its Coppola kit, as two of the five movies in the collection are varying cuts of the director?s Vietnam-era stunner Apocalypse Now. But it?s justified, as both the 1979 edit and the director?s 2001 cut have ardent followers, and both can now be analyzed in exquisite Blu-ray.

As a completist, and an elitist, I lean toward Coppola?s original cut. Gallons of ink have been spilt regarding the hardships Coppola endured on behalf of the filming of Apocalypse Now, a stinging commentary on the after-effects the Vietnam conflict had on wrung-out, patriotic soldiers. Heck, a full-length documentary, Heart of Darkness, details every painful step Coppola took to bring Apocalypse to the screen. (Where is that documentary? How is it not a supplement here? More on that in the next section.) The fact that Coppola had the fortitude to plunge back into Apocalypse to add nearly 45 additional minutes for the Redux cut makes it worth a look, but it pads a film that needed no enhancements.

Apocalypse Now and the first two Godfather films are considered Coppola?s crowning achievements. Give me The Conversation over all three, though. Perhaps its because I?m a Gene Hackman junkie, but the director?s haunting conspiracy thriller about a sound engineer and surveillance expert who grows steadily obsessed with a snippet of dialogue he records in a crowded square. Hackman?s mesmerizing, while Coppola plugs in to the fear and paranoia of an invisible ?Big Brother? that colors so many 1970s dramas. It?s a flawless character study, and ? in my honest opinion ? Coppola?s best film. It?s also relevant to note here that Coppola's The Conversation lost the Oscar for Best Picture in 1974 ... to Coppola's The Godfather Part II. Remarkable. What the hell did I do this year?

Fans can be happy grabbing the set for those two films, alone. But buyers will also get two additional, lesser films from Coppola?s oeuvre, and the supplements that come with them. If Apocalypse marks the end of the director?s ?Golden Age,? the 1982 musical One from the Heart starts the period in Coppola?s career where he started digging deeper into his own cinematic passions, while systematically alienating his audiences. The Las Vegas-set romance between Hank (Frederic Forrest) and Frannie (Teri Garr) was meant as an upbeat antidote to the somber Apocalypse. However, the director was unfocused, both on and off the set, and the film?s ballooning production budget nearly sank his self-propelled studio, American Zoetrope.

Coppola?s an artist. There?s no denying that. His pictures are experimental, and his later output became far less mainstream (while always remaining interesting). The 1980s and ?90s were marked by riveting productions of The Outsiders, The Cotton Club, Tucker: The Man and His Dream and Bram Stoker?s Dracula. But he continued to explore inward, and the last film in the set -- Tetro -- is an example of the wandering Coppola and his unfinished works. Released in 2009, the story of two brothers torn apart by creative differences was a symbol of the director?s current state. The narrative revolves around an unfinished screenplay, and the director?s reputation for consistently tinkering with his art led to an unfinished, half-hearted film. As part of this set, it shows the progression of Coppola?s creative voice, but I?d be surprised if you revisited Tetro more than once.

The Disc:

It?s a good thing the movies in the Coppola set are mostly worth owning, because the extras compiled by Lionsgate and Zoetrope aren?t worth the effort. This isn?t one of those exhausting collector?s edition packages that dig every bit of behind-the-scenes clips in hopes of pleasing the rabid film fanatic. Features that are included on the discs were present on previous home-video releases of the films, and the quality of the footage is grainy and disappointing.

In terms of visual transfers, the two cuts of Apocalypse Now look the best. There?s no age in their screenshots, and the prints have been scrubbed clean (while maintaining the integrity of the composition). The Conversation isn?t as lucky. Composition seems to fade in and out from scene to scene, and the browns and blacks that drove ?70s cinematography prove to be a problem to the Blu-ray conversion. The sound on The Conversation is fittingly brilliant, though.

Because Tetro is more modern, it looks better than Heart, which actually suffers from a dreadfully scratchy transfer. Vegas screams and pops off the screen in this unusually colorful film, but the presentation is weak, and damages the film?s impact.

The thing about Apocalypse Now is that fans likely grabbed the film?s DVD set that hit shelves backing 2010. Be glad if you did, for it boasts a full disc of extras ? Heart of Darkness included ? that aren?t found here. The Apocalypse duo has a commentary track from Coppola, and a BD feature that allows you to download additional software on a separate device and follow along with a different app, which is too much work.

The Conversation Blu-ray is the best in the set, packing in multiple audio commentary tracks, screen tests for Cindy Williams and Harrison Ford, script dictations and interviews with Coppola from the set, ?No Cigar? (a student short film by Coppola), ?Harry Cauls? San Francisco: Then and Now,? theatrical trailers and more.

The most interesting feature on the Heart Blu-ray has to be ?The Dream Studio,? a clip shot during the film?s tumultuous production that documented Coppola?s war with Paramount as he tried to establish American Zoetrope. Fans of the director?s experimental approach to storytelling also will enjoy ?The Electric Cinema,? which pries into his creative process. Vintage fetaurettes also dig into the making of the film, musician Tom Waits? contributions to the musical?s score, rehearsals, deleted scenes and the ?This One?s From the Heart? music video. Like each disc on this set, it?s a mixed bag of memorable regalia and disposable art. Still, for the price, the entire set is completely worth grabbing, if only to have films like The Conversation and One from the Heart on Blu-ray, finally, after all of these years.

Starring: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Raul Julia, Teri GarrDirected by: Francis Ford CoppolaProduced by: Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Roos, Gray FredericksonWritten by: John Milius, Francis Ford Coppola, Armyan Bernstein

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Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino is without question one of the greatest filmmaker of the modern age. Over 20 years he has helped reinvent the crime genre, thrown traditional structure out the window, and created characters and shepherded performances that will never be forgotten. But with extreme talent and success comes high expectations as we come to Django Unchained, Tarantino?s eighth film (counting Kill Bill as one full feature). While the spaghetti western homage is packed with everything we?ve come to expect from the writer/director, from buckets of blood to crackling dialogue, ultimately it doesn?t fully deliver the spark we expect from him.

Much like Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino takes us on another mission of revenge, and while the focus is a bit more narrow than the 2009 war epic, the story is just as explosive. Set two years before the start of the Civil War, the movie stars Jamie Foxx as titular Django, a slave freed from bondage by a German bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). At first Django is only on board because he's the only person who knows the faces of three criminals that Schultz is hunting, but the two eventually recognize a bond between them and head off on a mission to rescue Django?s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who is owned by the infamous plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Unlike Basterds, which takes gleeful joy in rewriting history, it?s actually a realistic approach to the antebellum South that makes Django such a powerful and, in a strange way, cathartic work. Tarantino holds back nothing ? as he?s wont to do ? in his portrayal of slavery?s cruelty, unabashedly showing unspeakable acts like brandings, whippings, beatings and even dog attacks. But it?s anything but gratuitous. By showing the true-life unspeakable acts that were committed against innocent people during that era, the director earns a powerful emotional response from the audience, making them beg for karmic resolution - and because this is a revenge story they get it in full force. Without the brutality we?d be cheering for Django getting his vengeance anyway, but by including it the movie actually gives you a sense of closure and personal satisfaction.

And keeping the audience firmly planted in the world are the extraordinary performances by the lead cast members. Appearing in just about every scene, Foxx brilliantly sells the lone bounty hunter cowboy role when needed, but is at his best when sharing scenes with his co-stars; he and Waltz have sparkling chemistry that allows for the friendship to be believable while also featuring humor and sweetness. And for all the scenery-chewing he does, DiCaprio gives one of the best performances of his career, embracing the outlandish Calvin Candie and having a blast with the material.

When Django Unchained falters, it's in the areas where Tarantino usually excels. After a fluid, great first act, the second--which follows Django and Schultz to Candie?s plantation and sets up the con that they plan to pull-- has lulls that would be inconceivable in other Tarantino films. Other scenes move far too quickly and are over before they start, particularly two of the final action sequences. This could partially be explained by the fact that this is the first time that the writer/director has worked with editor Fred Raskin after spending his entire career closely working with the sadly departed Sally Menke, but the problems come from the script as well.

While there?s no confusing the movie as the work of another director, it?s also oddly missing some of the casual Tarantino flair. He peppers in the occasional pulpy quick zoom and has some fun with chronology, but the auteur?s signature feels faded here. A monologue by DiCaprio about the ?science? of phrenology is reminiscent of David Carradine?s Superman speech from Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Waltz?s musings on rats at the start of Inglourious Basterds, but is lacking some of the similar bite and wit in the writing. The movie is also loaded with amazing character actors, from Walton Goggins to James Remar to Michael Parks, but they are often gone just as quickly as they arrive, and some of them are even relegated to being glorified extras. Tarantino uses many of his best tools for Django Unchained, and while they do the job well for the most part they?re simply not as sharp this time out.

But even as one of his weaker efforts, Django Unchained still ranks higher than most of what comes out over the course of a year. Expectations aside, Django Unchained is a bold, fun, bloody ride with awesome performances, brilliant action, and a great story to tell - you know, a Tarantino movie.

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The Impossible

Some tragedies are so massive in scope it's impossible to fully wrap our heads around them. One such tragedy befell hundreds of thousands of people on December 26th, 2004, when a massive earthquake under the Indian Ocean hurled a tsunami on the shores of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, Somalia and Thailand. The Spanish-produced drama The Impossible doesn't attempt to reveal the scope of this catastrophe that is estimated to have killed more than 227,000. Instead, it chooses to center on the remarkable personal story of one family, ripped apart by the waves, who strove to find each other and survive.

? Directed by The Orphanage's Juan Antonio Bayona, his horror background can be felt throughout the film. Before the first image comes up, a title card reminds us of the day the tsunami came. Then, an angry thrum of churning water builds in the darkness. The sound design throughout the film is punctuated and violent, expertly conveying the power of the waves and the fragility of human bodies as they are thrashed about in it and its remains. When picture finally comes up, it's of the British Bennet family on a flight to Thailand for a Christmas vacation they'll never forget.

? Still dizzy off the threat of the water, I found their brief chatter on the plane plays out like the moment when campers in woods plagued by a killer gush about what a great weekend they'll have. It all just feels doomed from the start. As Henry and Maria (Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts) dote on their three boys--five-year-old Simon (Oaklee Pendergast), seven-and-a-half-year-old Thomas (Samuel Joslin), and petulant adolescent Lucas (Tom Holland)-- the audience squirms with dread, knowing this is all the before, before the impossible will descend from the beach that's just yards away from their resort. The tension builds with the Bennets oblivious, and by the time the waves come barreling toward the boys and their parents, it's almost too much to take. But Bayona thoughtfully pulls his punch, cutting to black after the waves sweep over the boys and their father but before it hits their cringing mother.

? Cut to Maria panicked and flailing above wave churning with corpses, trees, shattered buildings and other threats. She switches from survival mode to mother mode when she spots her oldest shrieking as the waves carry him off. Their efforts to reach each other had my heart in my throat, but when they are at last together and the waters subside, so does most of the film's tension. As Maria and Lucas wander through the wreckage, wonder if the rest of their family is dead, and eventually make their way to a hospital, the stakes seem infinitely lower than just moments before. They've survived one of the worst natural disasters ever recorded. Everything else pales in comparison.

Nonetheless, The Impossible meanders along, splitting its simple story between Maria and Lucas, and Henry who is single-mindedly searching for the rest of his family. This jumping around further hurts the film's tension, and also exposes peeks into the loss of others, who clearly have nothing and no one left. Swamped by so much death and devastation, the struggle of the Bennets lost my interest, and I began to wonder what would happen to the hordes of lost children, the decimated villages, and the natives who could not fly away from all the tsunami's chaos, back to a homeland with all the modern conveniences. The more the movie glimpsed at these groups, then looked away, the more it bothered me that the family at the film's center had been transformed from the Spanish S?mon family (on whom the story is based) to the British Bennets.

You'll be hearing more about The Impossible as award season mounts as Watts, McGregor and young Holland are all said to be contenders. It's easy to see why. Their performances are tear-streaked, full of pain and emotion. The movie is essentially a raw nerve that pulses with ragged emotions from terror to despair, empathy and relief. Each of these actors offers a capable, physical and committed performance, but unfortunately none of it is enough to give The Impossible focus or a driving momentum.

? Bayona took on an ambitious project, and many of his choices work. The tsunami looks real, merciless and thoroughly horrifying as it sweeps away swimsuit-wearing tourists, towering palms trees and entire buildings with a relentless indifference. While the camerawork zigs and zags to capture the frantic panic of the disaster's survivors, the sound design stays sharp, vividly reminding us of how tender human flesh is as it snags on reeds and tears on rock. The emotions are vibrant and earnest. But once the threat of the waves was gone, I was no longer caught up in The Impossible.

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Resident Evil: Retribution [Blu-ray]

Resident Evil: Retribution opens with a weird rewind sequence that attempts to be epic through the use of extremely melodramatic music. It?s confusing and offensive and explains exactly why this movie doesn?t work?it never knows exactly what it is or how best to achieve what it wants.

The Movie:

The plotline of Resident Evil: Retribution, the fifth movie in the franchise, is complicated enough that director Paul W.S. Anderson doesn?t expect his audiences to catch on, or else isn?t a good enough director to have determined a better way to update audiences. Thus, he introduces a narrative device that uses multiple connected screens and a storytelling session with our heroine, Alice (Milla Jovovich), to get us up to date. Basically, the Umbrella Corporation is still up to its usually hijinks and this time Alice must find her way out of the corporations underground base, where they are putting together a variety of obnoxious and cruel experiments on clones.

This leads to April running around in an underground facility populated by different sorts of monsters and clones that have been created by the Umbrella Corporation and manipulated with viruses. Apparently, April is important enough that she is helped by Ada Wong (Bingbing Li) and a whole crew of not-so-gentle men, including Luther (Boris Kodjoe), Leon (Johann Urb), and Barry (Kevin Durand), who show up to help Alice escape.

To be clear, the underground facility features miniature cities meant to look like carbon copies of places as instrumental to humanity as Moscow and New York. Each of the settings is unique and populating those settings with creepy biohazards makes for visually appealing backdrops and action sequence?although the ideas behind the visuals are sometimes better than the actual graphics (blame the budget). Ultimately, however, the story is the big loser, telling a tale etched together to simulate a video game.

The biggest problem with Retribution is that it doesn?t expect its audience to think its way through anything. The film?s main cast runs around all willy-nilly, behaving like chickens with their heads cut off, and audiences simply have to follow Alice and her friends as they make decisions that seem to be based on emotion or potentially knowledge we aren?t privy to. Additionally, despite having no reason to root for our main characters, it becomes clear that most of them will prevail and most of the big bad Umbrella Corporation crew will have to settle for a not-so-nice demise. This likely is what happens when you beat one of the Resident Evil games?the good guy prevails and life for the bad guys goes to shit. Regardless, Retribution is a movie, and without the ability to play the game or strategize to get to the ultimate outcome, the endeavor is not only nonsensical, but sometimes dull.

I?m not sure how Retribution could have been any better. It?s a movie that wants to almost be an interactive experience, but then it would no longer be a movie. The occasional cute quip from a cast member or super cool action sequence with a chain doesn?t really change that. I can see how die hard franchise fans might want to jump in and see their favorite game characters act out familiar fighting styles, but for the rest of us, Resident Evil: Retribution is probably a film better avoided.

The Disc:

I may have complained about the film lacking interactive components that would be necessary to make the storyline work, but the disc is extremely interactive, and focuses on the ?Project Alice? portion of the film. My one qualm was that this section took a little while to load, but once it loads, fans will have access to a database of the characters in the movie. These include ?case files? on the characters, which offer video footage from the other Resident Evil films. There is also sensitive Umbrella Corporation information available, as well.

Next, deleted and extended scenes can be viewed. There is a lot of repeat in these, and some of the sequences are pretty lengthy. Still, there are a few segments that offer some behind-the-scenes information and that are worth a watch. Outtakes follow, which mostly include flubs with weapons and stunts, although it?s nice to see all of the super serious characters in the film having a bit of fun. The outtakes reel is one of the more enjoyable that I?ve seen, but it does go on and on and on.

Several lengthy featurettes are available, as well, including one on Alice?s character, one on the creatures in the flick, one on the design of the film and its settings, and one on the stunt work in the film. Finally ?Code Mika? discusses a return character that ?adds a Japanese element? to this film and ties it with the last film in the franchise, as well. A fan competition segment with a Resident Evil superfan and a game trailer also shows up in the special features.

Anderson pops up all over these featurettes, and you can tell he is really invested in the universe and the action sequences. He gets his own featurette, ?Maestro of Evil,? that discusses the ideas and intentions behind the fifth flick in the franchise. He wanted things to be ?bigger and better,? and the intensity has certainly been amped up this time around. Additionally, if you want to get more of Anderson?s ideas and enthusiasm, you can watch either of the two commentaries available with the set, which both feature the director and a few other people?the first offering actors' perspectives and the second offering a producer's perspective.

Overall, the disc is easy to navigate and it features a really pretty menu. If you like Retribution, I would highly recommend you purchase the Blu-ray for this film.

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Bingbing Li, Boris KodjoeDirected by: Paul W.S. AndersonProduced by: Paul W. S. Anderson, Jeremy Bolt, Don CarmodyWritten by: Paul W. S. Anderson

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Killing Them Softly

From The Roaring Twenties to Scarface and Goodfellas, gangster movies are often about the violent distortion of the American Dream. Our anti-hero strives for wealth?and the better life he believes it will bring?through ingenuity, elbow grease, and often blood, sweat and tears?though none of the latter may be his own. The American gangster is perhaps the best way to explore how the American Dream can be made an American Nightmare. Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly tries to go a step further, using the setting of a criminal underground to speak to the evils of capitalism and corporation-overrun America. Unfortunately, it's a gamble that just doesn't pay off.

Based on George V. Higgins' novel Cogan's Trade, the film centers on a ill-conceived heist and the carnage it brings down on anyone even remotely connected to it. Though the film's trailers show a dark sense of humor, the movie's jokes lack comedic timing, making this feature either a failed comedy or a stale drama. While Brad Pitt may seem the star, his hitman character, the titular Jackie Cogan, doesn't appear until the film's second act. Until then, we're stuck with a greasy Australian junkie (Ben Mendelsohn) and a wiry, na?ve thief (Scoot McNairy) fresh from prison and hungry for some easy money. The two decide to rob a local illegal gambling den, planning to peg it on the place's crooked owner (Ray Liotta in a thankless role). Following the heist, unseen management brings in Cogan, who?per the title?prefers to keep his distance from his prey, killing them softly. Basically, he likes to keep it professional, avoid emotions. In the mix there's also Richard Jenkins as an easily flustered middle man and James Gandolfini as a monologuing and maudlin killer. Unfortunately, this incredible cast makes little impact because the film lacks focus.

From the start, Dominik, who previously won acclaim for writing and directing The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, makes confounding and dissonant choices. The film is a tangle of story threads unfurling crudely amid a misplaced dreamy soundtrack and speeches from Senator Barack Obama, Senator McCain and President George W. Bush, during the presidential campaign and financial crisis of 2008. Dominik attempts to make these repeated mentions of the economy sync up to his story of greedy and short-sighted crooks in some sort of meaningful way, but the message is incoherent beyond the obvious. Worse yet, the characters are so vile and selfish that there is nothing for us to connect to, and the proceedings carry no emotional weight or dramatic tension. Because really who cares what happens to men who say things like this, speaking of the women they've bedded: "These girls, you probably wouldn't want to rape them, but the plumbing's just fine."

This dialogue reflects the kind of brutality that's on display in Killing Them Softly. The violence in the film?much of it enacted against Liotta's poor scapegoat?is absolutely grotesque. An ardent fan of horror, I typically have a high tolerance for movie violence, but confess I turned away from the screen multiple times. It's not so much the gore, which was minor, but the bone-crunching sounds that crack loud and clear as punches, kicks and pistol whips are delivered. It actually made me queasy. And it might seem we're meant to be repulsed but the violence, but then there's a perplexing sequence of murder that plays out in dazzling slo-motion with beauty shots of bullet casings flying and blood gushing that seems to glorify the kill. And I'm left bewildered. Similar artistic flair?including a scene made thick and throbbing with effects to reflect the perspective of a stoned heroin junkie?are slapped in among the narrative, and are equally jarring.

My memories of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford are vague but positive, and so I expected much more from Dominik's follow-up than this mess of allegory and violence. The ease and elegance I remember from his last film is absent here as scenes start, lumber then stop without purpose before clumsily cutting elsewhere with a song slapped on, adding to the aimless and episodic feel. There will be a lot of truly remarkable films coming out this season, but by my count Killing Me Softly is not among them.

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