Killing Them SoftlyAndrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly debuted at Cannes last month to excellent first reviews, and has long been one of the films I’ve most been looking forward to this year.

Due out in September, we’ve seen a few great things from the film already, including a first teaser poster and first looks at Brad Pitt in the lead, alongside co-stars James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, and Richard Jenkins, and now the film’s official site has put up our first looks at Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, and two more images of Jenkins and Liotta.

“When their poker game is knocked off by petty thieves, the Mob calls in their best enforcer, Jackie Cogan, to make things right. Under the eye of a mysterious driver, Jackie must track down and punish those responsible for the heist. His assignment is complicated by those he comes up against along the way – an aging, drunken hit man, some bumbling local gangsters, and the ladies’ man who ran the ill-fated game.”

Previously titled Cogan’s Trade and adapted from the original novel of that title by George V. Higgins, Dominik has written and directed the film himself, re-teaming with Brad Pitt once more after their stellar work on the Oscar-nominated The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

McNairy was beyond brilliant in 2010’s Monsters, one of the finest indie films in a long time, and will also be seen later this year in Ben Affleck’s Argo. He’s also set to star in Gus Van Sant’s Promised Land and Lynn Shelton’s Touchy Feely, and has recently been tapped for Steve McQueen’s Twelve Years A Slave, alongside Michael Fassbender, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Brad Pitt, suggesting his career is definitely – and very much deservedly – on the rise. If you didn’t know his name already, now is the time to learn it: Scoot McNairy. You’ll be hearing a lot of it in years to come.

Killing Them Softly will be released on 21st September in the UK and the US, with The Weinstein Company distributing it across the Atlantic, suggesting it could well be an early awards contender – Moneyball was released on 23rd September in the US last year, as point of comparison. As usual with these great new images, you can click to enlarge