Runtime: 1 hour, 47 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Michaël R. Roskam
Quick Impressions:
Following a painful, protracted dearth of watchable new movies, three films I wanted to see came out at once last Friday.
The Drop is the one I’ve wanted to see most, partially because I love Gone Baby Gone (adapted from another of Dennis Lehane’s works) and partially because the presence of the late James Gandolfini intrigues me. (I mean, it’s one last chance for a posthumous Oscar nod for him. Of course, given the competitive field, I highly doubt the Academy will nominate Gandolfini this year, but I’m positive they won’t be nominating Winter the Dolphin, you know?)
My five-year-old, though, is dying to see Dolphin Tale 2, and I did review the first movie (and I do like dolphins).
And then there’s No Good Deed. I’ve been a fan of Taraji P. Henson since I first noticed her in Hustle & Flow, and who doesn’t want to see the always fascinating Idris Elba play the villain? That sounded like fun (and I was so disappointed when I realized it didn’t come out the week before as I originally thought).
To tell you the truth, I almost chose No Good Deed this week, and here is the biggest reason why. Last week, my daughter and I were in the car when the radio DJ said casually, “So let’s see what’s coming to the box office this weekend. There’s No Good Deed, starring…let’s face it, no one you’ve ever heard of…”
That got my attention right away. The DJ went on to plug Dolphin Tale 2, but I was stuck on her dismissal of No Good Deed for several minutes (well, for several days to be honest). Her tone really bothered me. Why bring something up just to declare it irrelevant?
Plus, I mean, come on, who hasn’t heard of Idris Elba? And even if you don’t know Taraji P. Henson from her film career, surely you’ve heard of the TV show she stars in, Person of Interest, a hit series on CBS with consistently high ratings?
Inspired by my irritation at that DJ, I decided to see No Good Deed this week in protest. But then on Monday, I heard that No Good Deed had soundly defeated Dolphin Tale 2 at the box office. Money talks louder than I ever could, so I no longer felt a moral obligation to see No Good Deed (and show that annoying DJ exactly who knows Taraji P. Henson and Idris Elba!).
Why on earth did the DJ say that, though? Was she actually reading a paid advertisement for Dolphin Tale in a tone that suggested casual banter? Did she begin to read off a list of new movies and then hesitate because she was not sure how to pronounce the name Taraji? Did the studio backing Dolphin Tale start a devious campaign to sabotage No Good Deed in the media when they learned it was on track for a bigger opening? Who knows!
I still may see No Good Deed at some point, and I probably will see Dolphin Tale 2 with my daughter, as well. (I didn’t take her Tuesday, as I’d originally planned, because a freak cold snap over the weekend made me terrifyingly aware that she had outgrown every single pair of her pants, leading us to spend the afternoon shopping for jeans instead.)
The point is (after these harried deliberations) I finally settled on The Drop this afternoon. I’m glad I did. For a September release, it’s highly engrossing, carefully plotted with a brisk pace and plenty of twists.
The Good:
I knew ahead of time that Dennis Lehane wrote the screenplay himself, but I didn’t know until the end credits that his original work was a not a novel but a short story called “Animal Rescue.”
That explained a lot.
The whole time I was watching The Drop, I kept thinking, Wow, this is just like a short story. Seriously, I think they should have called this The American Short Story: The Movie.
I’m terrible at writing short stories. Despite the seemingly limitless reserve of novels welled up in my brain, the short story is (sadly) a form I’ve never been able to master. But I’ve read a ton of them, and The Drop is a fine specimen, believe me.
For a popular movie these days, The Drop is unusually replete with symbolism. It never feels heavy handed, though (which is good), just refreshingly cohesive and neat. No word is wasted, and hidden meaning is lurking around every corner (just like the Chechen Mafia!).
(If you don’t believe me, I invite you to consider just the title itself for a moment. The Drop can mean several different things, and every meaning I can think of seems pertinent to what happens in this film. That’s usually a clear sign that you’re watching something you could have been reading a few years ago.)
As I left the theater, I noticed that the movie poster promises “a twist,” I’m not sure that’s the best word to use in this case, though. Too often these days, “twist” signifies a cheap trick designed to befuddle audiences into believing they’ve gotten their money’s worth. What The Drop delivers is the kind of resonant, jarring, “Bang!” ending that is so common in the short story that often we expect it (and feel cheated if the story ends with a whimper instead).
The Drop is the kind of story that always makes me stop and think, “Wow, it is just like…impossible to know how to be a man! How do any of them ever do it?”
I guess the answer is non-verbally. The Drop reinforces an idea I’ve repeatedly encountered in film and literature over the years. In order to achieve manhood, you must never ask anyone how or give away the secret to others.
(This is all very strange to me since I’m a woman, and we’re given very explicit instructions on how we ought to behave by everyone in the entire universe. And when those instructions contradict one another, we know that it’s our fault.)
Being a man seems so difficult. I don’t know how anyone ever pulls it off. You’re expected to know what to do, and—more importantly—to do it (with as little comment as possible). I don’t get it, but I guess that’s why I’m not a man.
Of course, in The Drop the whole process is complicated further by the presence of the Chechen Mafia. If you mess up being a man under these circumstances, you’re not only ridiculed, you’re dead. So that’s not good. (Why anybody ever thinks, I have a plan that’s sure to work. I’ll double-cross professional criminals! is beyond me, but this happens all the time in fiction.)
I don’t want to give away too much of the movie, but I’ll say that The Drop is always engaging because of a well-crafted plot driven by the (sometimes poor) decisions of nuanced, interesting characters. There are some plot twists, I suppose, but they’re more the result of realistic behavior by complex characters than cheap movie trickery.
The cast is also pretty great.
James Gandolfini has enough showy moments (particularly a conversation in the basement) to make an Oscar nomination realistic if the Academy wants to give him one. (I think, honestly, that the moment has long passed, but we can still enjoy the performance.)
Noomi Rapace plays a character who’s frustratingly never shown to us as fully as we’d like to see her, but her performance is good. (I don’t mean that we need to see more of her physically. Between Prometheus and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Rapace has definitely bared enough of her body and soul. But I mean the character seems like someone who (while rich and complex) will never get the development on screen that the audience might hope to see.
And I particularly liked Matthias Schoenaerts (whose work I don’t really know), and (most of all) John Ortiz (who was also great in Silver Linings Playbook). Michael Aronov is also very convincing (though I’m easy to convince from lack of experience).
The dog is the best, of course, and I also really enjoyed Marco Beltrami’s score. (I’m beginning to notice that I often enjoy Beltrami’s scores.)
Best Scene Visually:
Peril is always present in the world of The Drop, but forget about Bob and Nadia and Cousin Marv, no one is in as much constant, palpable danger as Rocco the pit bull!
I’m telling you, something seems to threaten that dog at every turn. Characters constantly stare off screen at something surprising and react with pronounced drama. Every time, my heart would leap into my throat as I asked myself in panic, “What did they find? What do they see? Is it the dog?” (If you’re invested in that dog, I swear, it seems like somebody finds something ominous that could be a dead or injured dog every five minutes.)
As various characters keep remarking, Rocco really is a very nice looking dog, a fine looking dog. If you ask me, that little pit bull is downright adorable and by far the most sympathetic character in the movie.
From the moment Rocco showed up, I kept hearing the oft repeated words of my late grandma echoing again and again inside my mind. “If they’re going to hurt that little dog, then I ain’t gonna watch this! You know I can’t stand to see an animal get hurt!”
Seriously, as far as I’m concerned, The Drop is the most suspenseful movie of the year. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, worried to death about that poor pit bull.
What’s interesting—I realize as I write this—is how often in this movie we see characters reacting to something important we can’t see off screen. In fact, the film ends this way, with a simple close-up of a character’s face as that person reacts to what is happening beyond the fourth wall. Taken together, all these shots of looking and wondering and seeing and reacting and processing practically tell a story of their own.
Probably the most arresting visual in the movie, though, is a watch stopped at 6:15. Of course, the guy wearing it is a moron because these days, everyone is going to notice a stopped analog wristwatch.
But track the watch’s progress through the film, and you’ll see a powerful symbolic message that seems to apply to one character in particular. The thing is, the watch is stuck on the wrong time. 6:15 has passed. That time has come and gone. Watch the watch, and you get a visual depiction of one character’s entire story in miniature.
Best Scene:
This goes along with the whole stopped watch thing, but for me, one of the movie’s most powerful, resonant scenes unfolds as some central characters discover something most unusual on the chain length fence by the garbage cans.
A moment later, Hardy’s methodical precision with the plastic wrap and Gandolfini’s tortured work at the sink not only leave an indelible image in viewers’ minds but also tell us something quite crucial to unraveling the film’s somewhat intricate plot.
Best Action Sequence:
I loved two moments of action. One is the scene with the trunk, and the other is the scene in the bar after the Super Bowl.
This movie gets major points for concision. These scenes of gritty, gripping action also advance the plot and give us a greater understanding of the characters.
Bob and Cousin Marv are two very different characters, and somebody could probably articulate how they are different very clearly (and correctly) after watching just these two scenes in isolation.
The Negatives:
I’ve always enjoyed Tom Hardy’s work. He’s a good actor, and he makes Bob an immediately engaging, broadly sympathetic, and reasonably memorable character.
The only problem is, Bob often feels a little too much like a character. At almost every turn, he reminded me incredibly of the protagonist in a short story.
(I’m reading For Whom the Bell Tolls right now, so I probably have Hemingway on the brain, but for what’s it’s worth, The Drop kept making me think of “The Killers,” a story I haven’t read in years. They’re not that similar, but it’s something about the way Gandolfini’s character talks to Hardy’s.) The Drop announces itself as an American short story in practically every scene, and it’s just so hard to forget that Hardy’s Bob is a character in a fictional story.
I’m hesitant to blame Hardy himself for this, but he just comes across as less authentic in his role than James Gandolfini and John Ortiz. I constantly felt that he was (perhaps) over playing the character.
It’s the kind of performance that will win the admiration of some and draw the scrutiny of others. Sometimes, it’s good to make a character seem like a character. That way, he’s interesting, memorable. But I could easily believe that Cousin Marv and Detective Torres actually know the streets of New York, whereas, Bob seems so carefully crafted and meticulously performed that I could never forget he was being played by a (non-American) actor trying to give a great movie performance.
Also—as I said before—I wish we got to see a bit more about Noomi Rapace’s character.
Apart from those (really kind of minor) quibbles, the film’s only real weak point is its limited scope. Even this isn’t a major flaw. All I’m saying is that The Drop is a fairly quiet early fall release with modest ambitions. Despite its compelling, well plotted story and stellar cast, the film is only telling a simple tale about a handful of people. It’s not some sprawling epic or earnest character drama out to motivate viewers to change the world (nor does it need to be).
Overall:
The Drop is a well made film and should entertain most audiences start to finish. It offers a well told story, strong performances by a capable cast, and enough suspense to keep us watching expectantly until the end credits roll. Tom Hardy does some memorable work, and I believe this really is James Gandolfini’s last film role, so see it while you can.
For a September release, The Drop is surprisingly strong, definitely both watchable and re-watchable. Plus, there’s a very cute dog. (I’d watch the film a second time just to fall in love with him all over again.) Really, he is a very nice looking dog.