2014 - 106 Minutes - Crime/DramaDirector: Michaël R. Roskam
Country: USA
IMDB: 7.9
Metacritic: 69
RT: 88%
EpicEnthusiast's Rating: C-
Watch this movie if you enjoy:
- neighborhood crime dramas
- James Gandolfini
- Tom Hardy
Avoid this movie you dislike:
- violence (including animal abuse)
- profanity
- cliched plot points
You need quite a few things to make a successful crime drama. Some of those things aren't exclusive to the genre, like a sound script, strong acting or smooth transitioning, but crime often calls for a bit more. You need authentic violence and terrorizing criminals. You need compelling moments and character development away from the world of crime. And perhaps more important than anything else, you need uniqueness.
The Drop has some of these things, but not the ones that matter most.
Tom Hardy plays Bob, a bartender at one of many dirty money "drop zones" around Brooklyn. On any given night, money travels through the bar and gets dropped into a safe under the counter. Bob doesn't know when his place will be the drop zone, but despite his calm charisma, he's been around the crime world for quite some time.
His cousin Marv, played by the late James Ganfolfini, was once an owner of the bar, but even though his name is still on the sign out front, he's now seemingly under the control of the Chechnyan bosses. When the bar gets robbed, they come looking for their money, and Bob and Marv must provide answers.
"The Drop" jumps out of the gate with a lively sequence of Bob narrating "drops" all over the city, and showing us how discrete the whole operation is. Fitting music on top of shady maneuvers suck you in, but we never see this type of energy again.
Part of that is due to Dennis Lehane's ultimately lackluster screenplay. Lehane, who wrote Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, and Shutter Island, is a very experienced writer, but writing a script proved to be a different sort of challenge. All three of the above mentioned novels were adapted into successful films, but The Drop is the first time Lehane has composed the screenplay by himself. A few episodes of HBO's The Wire was the only experience he had writing for the screen, and while his dialogue here wasn't poor, it was often head-scratching or off-putting in scenes that demanded more.
Now to be fair, some of that seemingly bizarre dialogue may have been intentional, especially that spoken by Bob. If Lehane's goal was to create a mysterious and quiet character that showed signs of affection, but was clearly hiding something, he succeeded. And Hardy plays him very well, despite a peculiar accent reminding you of his British background. But he's in nearly every scene, and softly dominates The Drop, so you give him the benefit of the doubt. It's not a dynamite role from the Londoner, but it's one that we'll look back on as kick-starter to his great career.
Also strong is Gandolfini, who passed away during director Michaël R. Roskam's editing process earlier in the year. While he may not be quite as powerful as the Tony Soprano we all know and love, he's back in a familiar role, and successfully plays both a threatening head honcho and a desperate old cousin in debt to the wrong people.
But similar to Hardy as Bob, it was almost as if Uncle Marv's true emotion wasn't able to breach the surface. Like something was preventing him from saying what he really wanted to. It felt like he was acting, and with a legend like Gandolfini, you're much quicker to point the finger elsewhere.
Despite being held back by the script, the characters of "The Drop" are actually what keep it afloat. Some crime films are solely dependent on an intricate plot or shocking twist, but Roskam's film has neither — despite efforts to implement the latter. The plot moves slowly, and while it isn't stale or boring, it's a bit dull. A handful of tense moments perk you up, but only temporarily, and it's the characters that keep you interested, though not attached.
Without the strong performances of Gandolfini, Hardy and Noomi Rapace,— Prometheus, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — The Drop would have been a total failure.
And then there's the clichés.
Some are tough to avoid, like a ruthless mob figure that's collecting money, but others just instantly induce face-palms and bring the movie down. Like the above-mentioned failed twist. If you watch enough films where there's just a little something is off, or something about a main character feels fishy, you know that the character is eventually going to do something unexpected. But because you're expecting the unexpected, it's not nearly as shocking as it should be.
Or how about the detective that's snooping around, but never makes an arrest. He shows up at the scene of a crime, but comes a minute too late. He knows that a missing person isn't actually missing, and he knows that a primary character has committed a serious crime, but can never prove it. In this case, his last line of the film is: "They never see you coming, do they ________?" Gasp. Shocker.
But worst of all is another instance of "getting the girl." Rapace does a nice job, but her character falls victim to another girl being wooed by some heroic act. In "The Drop," that heroic act happens to be a felony. It's the kind of ending that you know the actors don't even believe. And it's a shame too, because the final shot is the best of the film, but it's heavily diminished by the queen of crime movie clichés.
Ultimately, The Drop isn't what it could have been. It's a fairly well made film that suffers from a sub-par screenplay, sloppy editing, and glaring clichés. The acting is strong, but not strong enough to make up for it all. If it's worth watching, it's solely because of Hardy and Gandolfini, who was kept from usual greatness in the last movie role of his life.
-EE
As of September 23, The Drop is in theaters everywhere. Here's the trailer:
The Drop has some of these things, but not the ones that matter most.
 |
| Tom Hardy as Bob |
His cousin Marv, played by the late James Ganfolfini, was once an owner of the bar, but even though his name is still on the sign out front, he's now seemingly under the control of the Chechnyan bosses. When the bar gets robbed, they come looking for their money, and Bob and Marv must provide answers.
"The Drop" jumps out of the gate with a lively sequence of Bob narrating "drops" all over the city, and showing us how discrete the whole operation is. Fitting music on top of shady maneuvers suck you in, but we never see this type of energy again.
Part of that is due to Dennis Lehane's ultimately lackluster screenplay. Lehane, who wrote Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, and Shutter Island, is a very experienced writer, but writing a script proved to be a different sort of challenge. All three of the above mentioned novels were adapted into successful films, but The Drop is the first time Lehane has composed the screenplay by himself. A few episodes of HBO's The Wire was the only experience he had writing for the screen, and while his dialogue here wasn't poor, it was often head-scratching or off-putting in scenes that demanded more.
 |
| James Gandolfini in his final film role |
Also strong is Gandolfini, who passed away during director Michaël R. Roskam's editing process earlier in the year. While he may not be quite as powerful as the Tony Soprano we all know and love, he's back in a familiar role, and successfully plays both a threatening head honcho and a desperate old cousin in debt to the wrong people.
But similar to Hardy as Bob, it was almost as if Uncle Marv's true emotion wasn't able to breach the surface. Like something was preventing him from saying what he really wanted to. It felt like he was acting, and with a legend like Gandolfini, you're much quicker to point the finger elsewhere.
Despite being held back by the script, the characters of "The Drop" are actually what keep it afloat. Some crime films are solely dependent on an intricate plot or shocking twist, but Roskam's film has neither — despite efforts to implement the latter. The plot moves slowly, and while it isn't stale or boring, it's a bit dull. A handful of tense moments perk you up, but only temporarily, and it's the characters that keep you interested, though not attached.
Without the strong performances of Gandolfini, Hardy and Noomi Rapace,— Prometheus, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — The Drop would have been a total failure.
And then there's the clichés.
Some are tough to avoid, like a ruthless mob figure that's collecting money, but others just instantly induce face-palms and bring the movie down. Like the above-mentioned failed twist. If you watch enough films where there's just a little something is off, or something about a main character feels fishy, you know that the character is eventually going to do something unexpected. But because you're expecting the unexpected, it's not nearly as shocking as it should be.
Or how about the detective that's snooping around, but never makes an arrest. He shows up at the scene of a crime, but comes a minute too late. He knows that a missing person isn't actually missing, and he knows that a primary character has committed a serious crime, but can never prove it. In this case, his last line of the film is: "They never see you coming, do they ________?" Gasp. Shocker.
But worst of all is another instance of "getting the girl." Rapace does a nice job, but her character falls victim to another girl being wooed by some heroic act. In "The Drop," that heroic act happens to be a felony. It's the kind of ending that you know the actors don't even believe. And it's a shame too, because the final shot is the best of the film, but it's heavily diminished by the queen of crime movie clichés.
Ultimately, The Drop isn't what it could have been. It's a fairly well made film that suffers from a sub-par screenplay, sloppy editing, and glaring clichés. The acting is strong, but not strong enough to make up for it all. If it's worth watching, it's solely because of Hardy and Gandolfini, who was kept from usual greatness in the last movie role of his life.
-EE
As of September 23, The Drop is in theaters everywhere. Here's the trailer:
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