Director: Michael R. Roskam
Starring: Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini, Noomi Rapace
Well constructed though it may be, the problem with a film like The Drop is that if you've seen one example of its kind, you've seen them all. It's dark, it's gritty, and it's marked by the specificity of its location, where everyone in a particular neighborhood is connected in some way to organized crime, the potential for violence lurks behind every word and action, problems are dealt with "in house," and no one ever talks to the cops. Some of the particulars might change, depending on the geographical area of the setting and the cultural background of the protagonist, but it's always sort of the same: a guy with a past who's trying to lay low and keep out of what's going on around him, but ends up being drawn into it either because of a girl or because a relative has made a potentially fatal misstep, or both, and finds himself in the position of having to do clean up to ensure that things don't go from bad to worse, and has to do it before the cop that's been sniffing around puts the pieces together himself. It's formula, which isn't in and of itself a bad thing, but in the case of The Drop it would be helpful if it unfolded with a little more energy, because for a film that turns on several acts of violence, it's strangely bloodless. Cute dog, though.
