The Drop

The film industry is certainly in love with crime...uh, crime movies that is, with far too many gritty scripts launching themselves at the genre from all angles, yet never really differentiating themselves from the last. So how about the latest instalment, Michaël R. Roskam's The Drop? With the late James Gandolfini in a lead role, displaying his criminal-acting prowess for the last time, I was certainly keen to find out.

Bob Saginowski (Tom Hardy) works as a bartender in his cousin Marv's (James Gandolfini) bar. Once owned by Marv, but purchased by Chechen criminals, the bar operates as a front for money-laundering, having packages dropped off regularly. Whilst Bob and Marv try to stay out of the underhand business, the bar proves to be trouble for the cousins, beginning with an armed robbery that leaves the pair in debt to their Chechen employers.

Meanwhile, whilst walking home one evening, Bob finds an injured pit-bull abandoned in a bin and is helped by Nadia (Noomi Rapace), who owns the house, to nurse it back to health. Bob agrees to take the dog and names it Rocco, which is fine, until the dogs owner comes looking for Bob.

I have to admit, I became rapidly disinterested with this rather simple, yet still somewhat far-fetched plot. It's not like The Drop is particularly similar to most crime films, but it doesn't really bring much new to the genre either. There were some funny moments here and there, but generally I found that it just progressed a bit too slowly for my liking.

Tom Hardy continues to prove that he's an adept and talented actor, especially with his previous film Locke, and he's certainly great here too, albeit with a sometimes questionable Brooklyn accent. James Gandolfini also gives a strong final performance, though I found it difficult to imagine him as anybody other than Tony Soprano. Rapace wasn't bad as Nadia, though she could have probably been developed more as a character, and other than that, almost all of the supporting roles play idiots.

Continuing the trend of dark, gritty crime films, The Drop has a dull colour pallet, that envisages Brooklyn as one of the most dreary places on earth. The interesting use of camera angles and tracking shots in some of the montage sequences were refreshing, but generally The Drop doesn't have anything new to offer in the image department.

With strong performances from Hardy and Gandolfini, and some visually compelling sequences, The Drop is far from a bad film. There are plenty of interesting plot elements that differentiate it from the average crime feature, but its slow pace failed to keep me particularly interested.