FILM REVIEW The Drop

SOFT SIDE?Tom Hardy stars in ‘The Drop’.

A drop in pace


Cinema
Ciara Galvin

THERE is a passage in the book ‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck, where Lenny, the mentally impaired but loyal farm hand accidentally kills a puppy by petting it too hard.
In Michaël R Roskam’s ‘The Drop’, the character Bob Saginowski (Tom Hardy) is a little like Lenny, and there’s a puppy involved in the drama too.
Bob is a barman in a pub that used to belong to his cousin Marv, played by the late James Gandolfini. The bar’s name? ‘Cousin Marv’s’. Original, I know!
First off, Cousin Marv’s is used as a ‘drop bar’ in a tight-knit Brooklyn neighbourhood run by mob gangs. Cousin Marv’s is owned by the Chechen mafia, and it’s where collection money from other mob-owned businesses is held.
When I caught the trailer for ‘The Drop’ I immediately wanted to go to see it, assuming it was going to be similar to Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Departed’ or Ben Affleck’s ‘The Town’. Is it like these films? No. Granted, it has the cop sniffing around, an organised gang of mobsters, and dirty money switching hands quicker than ‘peace be with you’ handshakes at Mass, but the pace of ‘The Drop’ is considerably slower.
Hardy’s self-examining, refined performance is strong enough to make audiences forget that this was Gandolfini’s last role. Gandolfini’s portrayal of the former bar owner isn’t a far cry from his days as Tony Soprano. There’s leather jackets galore and severed limbs for good measure. Most business is conducted in smoke-filled rooms, but the once-feared Marv is now reduced to answering to the mafia.
Marv and Bob are left answering to greasy Chechen mob boss Chovka once again when the bar is robbed and $5,000 is taken. They are told to find the people who stole the money and get it back. Marv doesn’t seem as anxious as someone facing the wrath of a mob boss might, but he does tell Bob that if they did know where to find the stolen money it could implicate them in the robbery.
The film’s sub plots run somewhat on the slow side and only one of them throws up a welcomed twist, with a ten-year unsolved murder in the neighbourhood revealed. Another sub plot involves the kind-hearted Bob rescuing a pit bull from a woman’s trash. He soon he becomes attached to the dog, and to Noomi Rapace’s character Nadia, but soon Nadia’s dangerous ex-boyfriend shows up, with repercussions.
The cinematography of the film is not unlike that of The Sopranos, smoke-filled rooms form the backdrop for a lot of scenes and lengthened shots of seemingly innocuous acts add to the mystery of each character and event.
‘The Drop’ is more of a character-analysis piece than a thriller or an exposé of a criminal underworld. Intrigue is built around questions of what Bob is actually capable of and whether he, like his cousin, is involved in the criminal aspect of the bar, or just a facilitator.
It never really goes up a gear, and as far as crime dramas go, this definately won’t make it to a list of the all-time greats. However, something tells me that was never the intention.

Rating 5 out of 10