It’s been 12 years since Andrew Dominik exploded onto the scene with brutal Aussie crime drama Chopper. But you certainly couldn’t accuse him of being prolific.

Killing Them Softly is his third feature, following 2007’s The Assassination of Jesse James, and like that film, it stars Hollywood heartthrob Brad Pitt.

Pitt is Jackie Cogan, a hitman tasked with the job of investigating and tidying up the fallout from a bumbled amateurish heist at a mafia-protected poker game.

Dubbed a comedy by its director, this gangster thriller is less overtly funny, more just violent for the sake of being violent, with an emphasis on how it looks on screen.

Awkwardly-fitting comedic moments are supplied by James Gandolfini and Richard Jenkins in their respective larger-than-life roles, while Animal Kingdom’s Ben Mendelsohn lends a gritty air to the proceedings with his turn as scummy street-junkie Russell.

Putting in a performance that secures Russell’s status as the most intriguing and engaging character in the film, Mendelsohn confirms he’s a class act – he lifts everything he’s in.

Reminiscent of so much gangster/heist movie fare that’s gone before – think Collateral, Get Shorty, Pulp Fiction, The Sopranos and so on – Killing Them Softly feels secondhand and a little unsatisfying.

There are some high impact scenes – the poker game bust is taut and unpredictable and the scene where Ray Liotta is pummelled to a vomiting, pulpy mess is bloody, vicious, relentless, and so good.

But overall it feels lightweight, disguised by its heavyweight pretensions.

It wants to hit hard and get down and dirty at the same time as looking slick but it succeeds in presenting little in the way of substance beneath its chipped gloss veneer, despite satirical overtones.

It’s distractingly self-conscious and smug. Dominik’s treatment of Ray Liotta in the slow motion attack later on is an indulgent wallow in the fact he’s got the guy from Goodfellas in front of his camera.

He knows exactly that the audience will love it and openly revels in glory.

Slapped with an 18-certificate for its violence, Killing Them Softly’s style and execution suggest it’s more appropriate for a 15-certificate.

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