Killing Them Softly drives its point home like a jackhammer to the cranium. And yet, it somehow manages to drag in all the places it should soar, lulling the audience into a collective malaise – one that’s interrupted only briefly by tense episodes of gore. Killing is the type of entertainment that’ll stick in your craw like gum to the loins, making a nasty impression for all the wrong reasons. What’s more (or less)? The majority of this film feels like one long, cliched take on free market Capitalism, only this time served up raw, with a jagged set of molars on the side. All of which would be just dandy, mind you, provided there was just a little more worth savoring than the two or three scenes in which Messieurs Pitt and Gandolfini get their game on toe-to-toe.

(Killing Them Softly opens in theaters nationwide today.)