'Killing Them Softly' not anti Barack Obama: Brad Pitt

Many reviewers at Cannes have surmised that the movie takes a critical view of Obama's administration, and shows his reign as US president as being one of empty promises, reported Contactmusic.

"Only part of that is true. The movie sets Obama's 2008 Democratic National Convention speech against a landscape of greed and violence but this wasn't an attempt to criticize Obama, but rather the footage was used as a real expression of hope," Pitt said.

The film's director, Andrew Dominick, said that the gangster movie was critical of capitalism, rather than the US government specifically.

"I always feel that crime films are about capitalism, because it is a genre where it is perfectly acceptable for all the characters to be motivated by a desire for money. In some ways, the crime film is the most honest American film because it portrays Americans as I experience a lot of them, in Hollywood, as being very concerned with money," Dominick said.