Killing them softly: explanation of the allegory

Question

The Brad Pitt film, Killing them softly, is an allegory of 2008's subprime economic crisis. I'd like to know who each of the characters in the film is supposed to represent in relation to the crisis. Similarly, are there particular events in the film which have corresponding events IRL?

Answer 1

Based on evidence like this...

"This is an unrepentantly cynical take on the hope-and-change promised to the US in 2008" reviewer in The Guardian

from the film's creator Andrew Dominik in an interview: "as I started adapting it, it was the story of an economic crisis, and it was an economic crisis in an economy that was funded by gambling, and the crisis occurred due to a failure in regulation."

...here's my take:

In the movie, illegal gambling has ceased in New Orleans because two heists have occurred at Ray Liotta's (Markie's) poker games, and no one knows who to trust anymore. This represents how money-lending around the world largely grinded to a halt as the housing crisis began to unfold.

In the movie, the mafia was making money off the gambling, so the mafia wants gambling back -- just like how the world's investors were making money off of money-lending, so they desperately wanted a return to normalcy in lending.

From there, the allegory is less clear to me, but I think Ray Liotta's Markie could be a nod to George W. Bush. The heist went down on his watch, and though he wasn't technically involved in this particular heist, everyone knows he is shady, and someone has to take a fall -- so he gets whacked.

Brad Pitt's Jackie might be Barack Obama, a golden-boy leading candidate to take out Markie. James Gandolfini's Mickey might be John McCain, the over-the-hill other candidate who ends up getting dissed.

Richard Jenkins' Driver -- who, after the heist, recruits Jackie to kill Markie -- could be the American voters, or maybe the world's investor class. In any case, Driver chooses Jackie over Mickey, just like Obama was chosen over McCain to replace Bush.