Brad Pitt's Hitman Movie Is One Of The Most Underrated Crime Thrillers From The 2010s

Since the 1990s, Brad Pitt has consistently been one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. He's one of the few actors whose name alone can still put butts in seats, and that's why studios shell out big bucks to get him to headline their movies — he was reportedly paid $30 million for the 2025 racing drama "F1." He's headlined some of the best thrillers ever made, with his 1995 classic "Seven" one of the stand-out films of that decade. But not all of his best films have earned big box office bucks, and one in particular, the 2012 hitman movie "Killing Them Softly," is among his most underrated.

"Killing Them Softly" reunites Pitt with director Andrew Dominik, who helmed his 2007 revisionist Western film "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (a terrible title that doomed the movie from the start). Co-starring Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, James Gandolfini, and Ray Liotta, "Killing Them Softly" puts Pitt into the role of Jackie Cogan, a mafia hitman. Cogan's latest assignment is to clean up the mess left behind when three small-time crooks targeted a mob poker game, making off with a six-figure score. But Cogan's personal code means he may have to get another hitman involved to finish the job.

"Killing Them Softly" is based on the George V. Higgins novel "Cogan's Trade." So why didn't the movie carry the same title? Well, director Andrew Dominik has a pretty simple explanation. "Brad's character calls what he does 'killing them softly' — with a minimum of fuss," Dominik told USA Today. "It sounded like a movie title to me. 'Cogan's Trade' kind of sounds like a Clint Eastwood title to me from 1972." The book was first published in 1974, so that could be why. But, ultimately, he wanted a title that felt more contemporary to match the film's updated era — as well as focus on Jackie Cogan's personal code of hitman ethics.

Unlike some films that use working titles (a practice that studios like Marvel have adopted to keep their projects tightly under wraps), Dominik had a very different reason for keeping the real title of his thriller a secret during filming. According to the director, he feared that if Brad Pitt knew the real name of the movie, it might have impacted the way he delivered the line that references it. "There's a danger that the actor might make a meal out of the line," Dominik said. He wanted Pitt's delivery to be understated and not self-referential, and that's exactly what happened. Sadly, general audiences didn't vibe with the film, but most critics loved it — "Killing Them Softly" is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 74%.