The Drop
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Dennis Lehane, responsible for multiple novels informing neo-noir filmdom (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island), takes his first crack at a self-penned screenplay with The Drop, based on characters from his own long-shelved short story.
City Paper grade: B
Dennis Lehane, responsible for multiple novels informing neo-noir filmdom (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island), takes his first crack at a self-penned screenplay with The Drop, based on characters from his own long-shelved short story. Leaving Lehane's familiar Beantown playground and heading south to working-class Brooklyn, director Michaël R. Roskam looks in on Bob (Tom Hardy), a guarded blue-collar bartender who tugs the taps at a dive managed by his cousin, Marv (James Gandolfini). A former hood, the conciliatory loner insulates himself from all aspects of criminal existence, save for stashing dirty money for the Chechen mobsters who control his workplace. After the bar gets held up, Bob is forced back into "the life," an unwanted shove that coincides with his adoption of an abused puppy he's raising with the help of Nadia (Noomi Rapace), a neighbor with troubles of her own. The dog, adorable as he may be, is the chubbiest kind of metaphor for Bob's slow-burn rebirth, a little too on-the-wet-nose to let the movie stand alone as a character study. As an ensemble act, though, it's flush with humor, mood and energy. Chats between Bob and Marv color their past in measured bursts, and Matthias Schoenaerts is excellent as a skulking Machiavelli in a hoodie who always seems one cross word away from exploding. The third-act twists are far more telegraphed than Lehane and Roskam likely intended, but getting there a felonious treat.
