The Drop

Director: Michaël R. Roskam
Screenplay: Dennis Lehane (based on his short story “Animal Rescue”)
Stars: Tom Hardy (Bob), Noomi Rapace (Nadia), James Gandolfini (Cousin Marv), Matthias Schoenaerts (Eric Deeds), John Ortiz (Detective Torres), Elizabeth Rodriguez (Detective Romsey), Michael Aronov (Chovka), Morgan Spector (Andre), Michael Esper (Rardy), Ross Bickell (Father Regan), James Frecheville (Fitz), Tobias Segal (Briele), Patricia Squire (Millie), Ann Dowd (Dottie)
MPAA Rating: R
Year of Release: 2014
Country: U.S.
The Drop
The DropTom Hardy is a versatile actor of great depth and range, but because so many of the characters he has played have been men of violence—a notorious British prisoner in Bronson (2008), an embittered fighter in Warrior (2011), a brutal terrorist in The Dark Knight Rises(2012)—there is an immediate sense of suspicion in his performance as Bob, the quiet, mild-mannered Brooklyn barkeep in The Drop. Bob is a simple man whose work behind the bar is the sum of his lonely life. The fact that the bar is run by Cousin Marv (James Gandolfini), a former Mafioso of some clout who has been bought out by rival Chechen gangsters, and is often used as a “drop” for the city’s organized crime groups to deposit their earnings for the night, would seem to suggest that he, too, is a man of violence, but the way he keeps his head down, his mouth soft, and his body slouched indicates a man who is simply a cog in the machine, doing what he is told and looking the other way when necessary.

Bob’s seemingly quiet life is slowly turned upside down when, on his way home one night, he discovers a pit bull puppy that has been beaten and left in a garbage can. This brings him into contact with Nadia (Noomi Rapace), the fragile, but defensive waitress in whose trashcan the puppy is found and who happens to have experience working with rescued animals. Bob has no experience with dogs, so Nadia helps him figure out the basics while also becoming a potential romantic interest who just might be able to draw Bob out of his shell. Unfortunately, finding the dog also crosses Bob’s path with that of Eric Deeds (Matthias Schoenaerts), a smarmy ex-con and possible psychopath who begins stalking Bob and claiming that the dog is his. Meanwhile, the bar is robbed late one night by two masked gunmen, which puts Bob and Marv on the hook for the stolen $5,000 demanded by Chovka (Michael Aronov), the charmingly vicious Chechen gangster who now owns the place.

All of these intersecting plot lines are unmistakably of the world of crime novelist Dennis Lehane, whose modern noir melodramas about tough guys, career criminals, and unsteady minds have fueled numerous Hollywood vehicles, including Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River (2004), Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone (2008), and Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island (2009). The Drop marks the English-language debut of Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam, whose feature debut Bullhead (2011) was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Roskam displays a sure hand in conveying the mean streets of New York City (the inky cinematography is by Bullhead lenser Nicolas Karakatsanis), and if he doesn’t entirely elevate the story’s numerous clichés, he makes them work in ways that feel taut and organic.

The screenplay was adapted by Lehane from his 2009 short story “Animal Rescue,” and in many ways the film feels like a short story: a tight, compact narrative centered around a handful of intriguing characters with only the necessary modicum of backstory (interestingly, the story began life as the first chapter of a never completed novel back in 2001, and Lehane has since taken his screenplay and turned it into a novel). Lehane works in big, bold themes—honor, loyalty, violence—all of which are heavily present in The Drop and all of which eventually come to define Bob, a character who seems to be something of a blank slate when the film opens, but is eventually revealed to be something imminently more complex.

The fact that Bob emerges as both sympathetic and terrifying, gentle and dangerous, is really testament to Hardy’s impressive performance, which relies heavily on his keeping everything about his character locked tightly inside. The late Gandolfini, in his last big-screen role, is exactly the opposite, playing Cousin Marv as tough and brassy and, most importantly, bitter about his fallen status. Bitterness is a dangerous emotion in Lehane’s territory, and it tends to lead people to make terrible decisions with even worse repercussions. The Drop is very much one of those stories, and if some of the plot strands get a bit muddled, particularly the relationship between Bob and Nadia, the film as a whole maintains an impressive sense of gradually escalating tension that leads to a climax that is simultaneously shocking, tender, and deeply unsettling.

Copyright ©2014 James Kendrick

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Overall Rating: (3)




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