Does every NYC tale have to be about crime or romance? If movies are to be believed, there are approximately 10 million people in the greater metropolitan area and while roughly 8 million of them are involved in organized crime, the other 2 are trying to fall in love. This is not a sustainable strategy.
The Drop is the rare film in which more happens behind the camera than in front of it. While such would be disastrous in, say, an adventure film, in a crime drama it adds several layers of intrigue. The film will almost certainly be remembered as James Gandolfini’s swan song, and I’m glad he ended on a high note, but this is Tom Hardy’s film. Bob (Hardy) and Marv (Gandolfini) run a bar. A drop bar (the title is far more about location than event) – a place where mob money is collected and consequently stolen for plot purposes.
The mob here, a relatively superfluous bunch, is Chechen. Now this bothered me a little. Yeah, I’m used to the Italian mob and the Irish mob and Russian mob, but is there in addition a separate group of high-powered thugs for every subdivision of Russian-speaking peoples? Is there a Mordovian mob? Crimean mob? How about all the former Russian republics – a Latvian mob, Belarussian mob? Literally hundreds of possibilities here. That’s a lot of mobs. Ok, maybe 80% of NYC is criminals.
Back to Bob – this a scary strong performance by Tom Hardy, completely underplayed as someone of seemingly Forrest Gump-like intelligence – why is he allowing this thug (Matthias Schoenaerts) into his house? Can’t he see this is bad news? In one scene, he finds a bag of money with an arm in it. He casually removes the arm and wraps it like he’s wrapping a fish. Like he’s done it before. It’s weird and surreal and yet 
completely down home at the same time.
It’s strange how both relevant and anachronistic Brooklyn crime tales can be. From the costumes, characters and sets, one could guess 1960s or the 2020s. Luckily, we have a few hints. Bob comes to the rescue of a beaten puppy abandoned in a neighborhood trash can. The homeowner Nadia (Noomi Rapace) talks tougher than she has a right to in case Bob is the enemy – it’s how you treat strangers in a big city — she makes him produce an ID, captures it with her phone and sends it “to four friends.” Ah, romance. Then the dog itself supposedly has an ownership chip embedded. Do they have that? I’ll have to look it up. Anyway, yeah, that’s a tad more on this side of the 21st Century than, say, Jersey Boys.
You won’t catch everything in The Drop from one viewing. Well, I didn’t at least. I had no problem watching it again.
The bartender ain’t much of a talker
He acquires a dog and a stalker
And also some bread
All covered in red
Criminals in Brooklyn, what a shocker
Rated R, 106 Minutes
D: Michaël R. Roskam
W: Dennis Lehane
Genre: Is everybody in Brooklyn a criminal?
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Crime story junkies
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The sinless
