The Drop Misses To A Strange Degree...

...but still manages to be an alright movie.

The oddity of this flick is, I felt the performances were mostly excellent. I thought there was something interesting to the story. And the cinematography was truly great. But something got lost in the dialogue. Particularly when characters would, for no good reason, focus on one subject (a dog or a mini statuette of an angel) incessantly. It felt as if every character at one point or another commented on the same mundane thing... just so we, the audience would know it was sort of important to the plot.

Let me take a step back here. This was James Gandolfini's last movie. And he did a fine job in it. I'm not about to make light of that in any way. He really did bring his A game. But I cannot call a sort of mediocre move great just because of this context. The internal flaws of a bad script will always irk me. Tom Hardy was great. Noomi Rapace was serviceable. But that didn't really matter until the climax hit. Then the writing took an upswing for literally the most important scene of the movie before dropping back down to bleh to bring us into credits. Matthias Schoenaerts did a swell job too. But his part was so obvious. And then John Ortiz kind of made me wanna stop watching because he just couldn't maintain the same quality of performance as everyone else. It felt like the worst elements of the script would frequently erupt from his mouth.

Maybe I'm being a little too intense on this thing. But Dennis Lehane has never exactly done anything to give me confidence. And this being his first real screenplay... I guess he just lost his way in the dialogue department. I'm just saying, this script could've used a really good polish.

But at the end of the day, there was enough good in this movie to make it a worthwhile watch. If you ever enjoyed a Gandolfini performance, you'll probably get a kick out of his limited screen time. And Tom Hardy is always worth a watch. Just don't go in expecting the best picture of the year.

Let Locke Wash Over You

In a sea of pleasantries, Ivan Locke makes one mistake, but being the man of conviction he is, he has to take responsibility for his actions.

At heart, Locke is a very simple movie. Tom Hardy in a car. For an hour thirty. Driving. While metaphors do abound, the story never tries to push too hard. It's clear what's happening at any given moment and the plot never wanders. The group of characters Hardy speaks to while in the car are each precise and alive in their own way. But Hardy animates them even further with his visible subtleties. As a good friend put it, this film was like reading a novel. You develop a firm picture in your head of each of these characters even though you never actually get to see them.

If you got out to see Buried a couple years ago, this format isn't exactly mind-blowing. Man on cellphone tries to fix his life. One man show. This could easily have been a stage play. But someone was wise enough to put it on screen and pace it in just the right way. And while I felt like some of the road cutaways were borderline cheating, I can easily let that slide since the quality of content from every other moment of the film is so solid.

Essentially, Tom Hardy is a phenomenal performer. He carries this whole thing on his back while doing a character we (somehow) haven't seen from him before. While I don't always think of Hardy as a chameleon, the man certainly can change his voice. And in that one excellent maneuver, it feels as though he sheds his face. It takes real talent to do what he does.

Before the summer really gets going, you should try and catch this one. Believe me, you'll be craving something like it once the big action blockbusters start kicking your butt.