Review of The Drop (2014) by Lj L — 22 Sep 2014

The Drop is a good movie. It isn't a "Great" movie, or as one over enthused manager at the local theater claimed "the best movie this year".

SPOILER WARNING-------Brutally honest review with spoilers ahead:

Noomi Rapace plays Nadia, a quieter, more mouse-like variation on her character from Dead Man Down, but does it fairly well. Good solid acting, but nothing new for her or the screen. Gandolfini is equally good as Marv, and all the supporting cast hold up their end.

Tom Hardy does a great job as Bob, assuming they meant for the observant members of the audience to decide that he's an emotionally repressed loner who has probably killed somebody within the first 15 mins of the film.

The script is good. It's solid noir crime drama.

But the only surprising thing that happened in this film was when I read reviews that well respected critics thought it was surprising.

Lets put it this way; the movie opens focused on a bartender who never smiles, lives alone, and doesn't really talk with his customers.

He's totally a nice guy, right? No way this guy is anything fishy.

Fairly early, he stresses in a mostly non-emoting way about a dog he finds in his neighbor's trash, verbally and repeatedly unsure enough about the responsibility of keeping it that his hard-boiled boss Marv finally tells him that "It's just a dog, it's not like your mentally retarded relative showed up on your doorstep in a wheelchair with a colostomy bag hanging out of his ass. It's a dog." That was probably Gandolfini's best line, and it also makes a good point about the film. Bob isn't "lonely" like the film's studio blurb says, he's a loner. He doesn't know anything about dogs, girls, or people, but he has no problems wrapping up and disposing of a random body part that gets dropped off at the bar along with some recovered cash. The repeated mention of a local kid who got killed 10 years ago, and the lingering camera attention on a random heating oil tank in Bob's basement tell us he did it long before he kills a local loudmouth who claims to have committed the crime, while telling us all in detail about chopping him up, soaking him in lye and closing the tank up with him inside.

None of this is a surprise.

It's not even a surprise that nearly everyone dies, or that Bob, the puppy Rocco (who WAS admittedly adorable) and Nadia seem to be on their way to living a happy (if gritty) ever after.

The end wash? It's a good movie. Go see it.

But don't expect gripping action, or surprises, unless you thought Dexter was a nice boy too.