“Killing Them Softly” clearly takes aim at the 2008 Financial Crisis, but who comes off worse in this critique, Wall Street bankers or Washington politicians?
To answer, we first have to figure out who stands for the bankers and politicians in this movie, which is not nearly as obvious as initial reviewers assumed. Brad Pitt's character also calls for analysis.
Politicians
If anyone in “Killing Them Softly” represents Washington politicians, it’s Driver (Richard Jenkins) and his bosses.
Driver has the classic markers of a politician, such as a suit and tie (formality), glasses (theoretical knowledge), and a professed belief in the American nation and founding fathers (as Driver tells Jackie, “’Out of many, we are one.’ You hear that line? Line's for you…Oh, now you’re going to have a go at Jefferson?).
Driver (Richard Jenkins)
Driver’s bosses also clearly have the stereotypical qualities of Washington politicians:
·They make decisions very slowly, through complicated group consensus (Driver characterizes his bosses as “No decision-makers.” Jackie responds, “What is it, a committee?...This country is fucked, I'm telling you.”)
·They barely understand what it is they’re trying to regulate (Driver says, “I got to take them by the hand and I got to walk them slowly through it....” Driver himself took a long time to understand what Jackie was telling him about the importance of public perception of the main robbery.)
·Even though they’re supposedly in charge, they ask others to tell them what to do (Driver repeatedly asks Jackie what he thinks they should do next).
Granted, the lines can seem blurry, especially since we never see Driver's bosses. Driver’s suit and tie and reference to “corporate mentality” could also fit in a Wall Street office. But in light of the numerous striking overlaps, it’s fair to say that Driver and his bosses primarily represent politicians, not bankers.
Bankers
On the other side of the equation, the mobsters in this movie clearly represent Wall Street bankers. The main evidence here is their fundamental similarity: both mobsters and bankers in the film gamble so much that they crash their respective economies. Plus, the film stresses a more specific similarity: both are completely dependent on confidence in their business operations.
We repeatedly hear that the total economic crisis of both the mob and Wall Street can only be solved by taking drastic measures to restore confidence. For example, we hear President Bush stress confidence when he speaks on the TV playing during the card-game robbery: “As uncertainty has grown, many banks have restricted lending,...We're in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive action. We boosted confidence in money market mutual funds....” In a precise parallel, the crisis among the mob after this robbery is so bad that Jackie (Brad Pitt) tells Driver that Markie (Ray Liotta) has to be killed, to deter others from robbing card games and further undermining faith in the mob system (“If people think he [Markie] did it and he's still walking around, you're gonna’ have kids waiting in line knock them fucking games over”). Not that Jackie is being equated with Bush or Wall Street. He's simply expressing his superior understanding of mob logic, which is the same as Bush and Wall Street's: confidence must be restored so everyone can make money again.
This isn't a one-off. We hear Bush repeating this same confidence message in the very next scene, on Driver's car radio: “There has been a widespread loss of confidence. …And major sectors of America's financial system are at risk of shutting down.”
Then, in the later scene where Mickey (James Gandolfini) arrives to carry out a hit, we hear Bush stress confidence yet a third time: “Confidence in our financial systems is essential to the smooth operation of our economy, and recently that confidence has been shaken.”
The overlap between these 2008 media clips and the mob’s focus on confidence is overwhelming. The mob is clearly being equated with Wall Street. But where does Jackie fit in all this?
Brad Pitt’s Character
Matt Thomas insightfully argues that “Killing Them Softly” draws a sharp contrast between two worlds: the real world of the bankers and politicians who escaped punishment in 2008 vs. the mobsters in this film who paid for their mistakes with their lives (killings of Markie and the three low-level criminals who robbed the second card game). By juxtaposing these two worlds, the movie highlights and condemns the lack of accountability for the elites responsible for the Financial Crisis.
I completely agree. Brad Pitt’s character Jackie is a fantasy of a Super Punisher who makes people pay for their mistakes—a wish-fulfillment image of what should have metaphorically happened to the bankers and politicians in 2008, but never did. Jackie is an imagined third party, above and beyond the politicians and bankers. This makes much more sense than asserting (as some have on popular websites) that Jackie represents the actual political regulators in 2008. To the contrary, Jackie comes out of Western mythology. You can tell as soon as you hear that ominous Johnny Cash song when Jackie first appears on screen: "And he decides who to free and who to blame…When the man comes around."
Building on Thomas's excellent analysis, I would just add that it's worth exploring the way this critique applies differently to the bankers and politicians.
Ultimate Implications
“Killing Them Softly” offers a powerful critique of the 2008 bailouts on multiple levels.
The critique of Wall Street bankers partly comes from implying that they’re crude white-male mobsters: gambling, stealing, lying, killing, etc. And as Thomas rightly observed, showing mobsters paying dearly for their mistakes creates a biting reminder of what did not happen with real bankers in 2008. You can feel these critiques in your guts.
The politicians, on the other hand, are criticized more for their cluelessness than their greed. Calling the main politician character “Driver” is funny because he’s not actually in control, even over his own car. When they first meet, Jackie immediately starts telling “Driver” where to drive and park (“Bang a right and go a couple blocks”). Jackie then corrects Driver for his erroneous, naive assumption that the robbery was committed by “kids,” and he repeatedly explains the importance of punishing Markie. Delays, confusion, and hesitation on the part of Driver and his bosses cause Markie to suffer a brutal beating, before they finally comprehend Jackie’s advice and have Markie killed quickly and mercifully. These weak, dim-witted politicians claim to be the “Driver” and the “bosses,” but Jackie is actually the one running the show. Richard Jenkins never really had a chance going toe-to-toe with Brad Pitt.
Jackie (Brad Pitt)
The corollary is clear. Washington pretends to control Wall Street banks, but even in a major crisis, they don’t know how, and they just end up doing what Wall Street says—giving them billions of dollars. In the media clips heard throughout the film, President Bush repeatedly tells the American people why they have to bail out the banks, but he’s just doing his job as a figure head: addressing the public and maintaining the illusion that the government is in charge. Bush is really just passing along the "give us your money" confidence argument that Wall Street fed him, alluded to in his mention of “the government’s top economic experts.” In the real world of 2008, a major such expert was Henry Paulson, who pushed hard for the bailouts as Bush’s Treasury Secretary…and whose previous job was CEO of Goldman Sachs on Wall Street! This, too, gets pointed out in a radio clip, heard as Markie pulls up in his car: “That is Mr. Paulson's [bailout] plan, former head of Goldman Sachs….We should not be rolled by our Wall Street exec, who's masquerading as Secretary of the Treasury.”
Deciding who comes off worse in this critique, politicians or bankers, isn’t easy. It depends largely on whether you think it’s worse to cause mass suffering through stupidity (politicians) or selfishness (bankers). Also, if you believe Washington let Wall Street call the shots because they needed their campaign contributions, then they're practically as corrupt and selfish as the bankers. Or if you think banks, like government agencies, are run by know-nothings like Driver, then the banks take another hit. Either way, there’s plenty of injustice and critique to go around in this film.
For a personal look at the actual Financial Crisis, you might also want to read Corner-Store Dreams. In this book, I tell the true story of my growing friendship with an immigrant owner of a convenience store who almost lost everything in 2008 due to Wall Street’s credit scheme, rather than any fault of his own. It’s a personal and cultural story about trying to beat the odds by sticking together, overcoming racial differences, and understanding dreams. Or if you're looking for a reality check on another popular movie about the Financial Crisis, see my post titled "3 Ways 'The Big Short' Movie Downplays Banker Fraud." Whether through these or any other sources, we need to keep analyzing and remembering the Financial Crisis of 2008, never thinking it was a weird accident that can't happen again.
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