The killing game

Low-level crook Johnny Amato (Curatola) learns that mob man Markie Trattman (Liotta) staged a robbery at one of his own card games in order to steal the pot. So Amato hatches a cunning plan to rob another card game and point the finger of suspicion squarely at Markie. He hires Frankie (McNairy) to pull off the heist, and he in turn foolishly recruits unreliable junkie Russell (Mendelsohn) as a second gunman. Against the odds, Frankie and Russell manage to hold up the card game without accidentally shooting themselves or one of their hostages, and they make off with the booty. Mob go-between Driver (Jenkins) calls in hit man Jackie Cogan (Pitt) to identify the perpetrators and make them pay. Based on the novel Cogan’s Trade by George V Higgins, Killing Them Softly is an artfully composed, slow-burning crime thriller in which crime does pay and the price tag is your life. Writer-director Andrew Dominik transplants the setting of the book from 1970s Boston to 2008 Louisiana, using the passing of the political baton from outgoing president George W Bush to Democrat rising star Barack Obama as a backdrop to the skullduggery. The film is punctuated with brilliantly orchestrated and stylish explosions of violence.

Frankenweenie (Cert PG, 83 mins, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertain-ment). Featuring the voices of Charlie Tahan, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, James Hiroyuki Liao, Robert Capron, Atticus Shaffer ****

Victor Frankenstein (voiced by Tahan) is an outcast in the sleepy community of New Holland, where he lives with his parents (Short, O’Hara). His only friend is the family’s bull terrier Sparky, who has a crush on Persephone, the pampered black poodle that lives next door with Victor’s classmate Elsa Van Helsing (Ryder). When tragedy strikes and Sparky is laid to rest in the pet cemetery, Victor takes inspiration from his teacher Mr Rzykruski (Landau) and constructs a machine to harness a lightning bolt a la Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to re-animate the dead dog. Once classmates Toshiaki (Liao), Bob (Capron) and Edgar (Shaffer) discover Victor’s breakthrough, they plot similar experiments with their pets and hell breaks loose. Frankenweenie is a charming and impeccably-crafted stop-motion animation about a misfit out of step with his off-kilter surroundings. The black-and-white visuals are crisp and every frame is peppered with horror references and in-jokes. There are nods and winks to Gremlins and Godzilla, plus a torch-wielding showdown that embraces Mary Shelley with gusto. The script tugs the heartstrings without ever being cloy and the grand finale is orchestrated at a brilliantly.