Art and commerce? “They’re not meant to get along,” said Brad Pitt, the Cannes Film Festival perennial, whose film career has led to a bit of the former (art) and a bit more of the latter (commerce).

This year’s Cannes competition slate includes the film screened this morning at 8:30, writer-director Andrew Dominik’s small-scale hit-man yarn “Killing Them Softly,” in which Pitt reunites with his “Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” helmer.

Pitt, who also produced, plays a mob clean-up killer trying to do his job amid unreliable colleagues and recessionary spending cuts (the film’s set in 2008, as the banks are collapsing).  Like the ’30s bootleggingdrama “Lawless,” unveiled earlier this week on the Cannes main competition roster, “Killing Them Softly” is a Weinstein Company release schedule for release later this summer in U.S.
 

Compared to the weirdly lifeless "Lawless"at least with “Killing Them Softly” there’s something to debate -- the film's slippery black-comic tone, for one, or its blunt metaphoric use of the 2008 presidential election campaign footage. Conversation after conversation between Pitt and Richard Jenkins, orJames Gandolfini, takes place with a TV in the background showing Obama on the ’08 trail, touting America’s eternal promise. The transactions and grisly tactics we see in the story makes those words taste ashen.

“America’s not a country. It’s a business,” Pitt’s character says at one point, during a haggle session over his fee.

In the press scrum following the 8:30, Dominik said he liked looking at the picture (based on the 1974 George V. Higgins novel "Cogan's Trade") as a black comedy. Every other question in the press conference brought up the violence. Ray Liotta, who plays a supporting role as a crooked poker emporium manager, looked like he was ready to bolt, or kick the nearest stylish but uncomfortable piece of furniture into next week.

Credit the Australian native Dominik with honesty (as well with making a major film of often astounding beauty – “Assassination of Jesse James,” that is). “It’s not real subtle,” the director said regarding “Killing Them Softly.” Last year Pitt and his Plan B producing partner, Dede Gardner, arrived in the south of France with Terrence Malick's"The Tree of Life," which won the Palme d'Or and later secured a best picture Oscar nomination.  So far this year, whatever the nationality of the directors, the Hollywood fare is working a little lower down.