10 Greatest Neo-Noir Films Of The 21st Century

One of the most underrated films in modern memory, the second collaboration between director Andrew Dominik and Brad Pitt (who played Jesse James for Dominik three years prior) is proper throwback stuff. Based on a novel by George V. Higgins, this is a taught and thrilling movie with a ‘70s aesthetic and thoroughly modern satirical take.

Pitt plays Jackie, ostensibly a cool hitman archetype. He’s sent in to investigate a poker game heist that might just be an inside job, but the more Jackie digs, the murkier the world becomes.

Killing Them Softly does a superb job of de-glamorising the world of crime, with gangster icons Ray Liotta and James Gandolfini (in one of his best ever performances) playing faded criminals and killers put out to pasture. There’s nothing fun or cool about the crime in this film; it’s a picture about cold, calculating mercenaries whose success in the underworld depends on their stomach for violence.

The film was a divisive one for audiences, taking every effort not to fit into the usual crime film formula even as it progresses through many such setpieces. Its moral is that crime does pay, ultimately, and in that regard it’s quite dazzling.