By Pierce Brenner

Staff Writer

The Drop is one of the smaller films I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while now. It’s a crime drama starring Tom Hardy (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Locke) and James Gandolfini (The Sopranos) with a screenplay written by author Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone). With an amazing trailer and largely positive reviews, you’ve got a winner, right? But after seeing it I was completely underwhelmed.

Bob Saginowski (Tom Hardy) works at a bar that Brooklyn’s mobsters used as a drop off for their money. When some of that money is stolen, Bob becomes embroiled in the criminal underworld that he worked so hard to avoid.

Just as I expected, Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini are absolutely fantastic. Ever since his star turn in Bronson, Hardy proves again and again that he is the real deal. The Drop just offers further proof of that. He plays a guy who’s meek and unassuming, but every moment he is onscreen he completely absorbs you with the sheer power of his talent. Also, James Gandolfini delivers his last performance with such charisma that you’re whisked back to the glory days of Tony Soprano and left in awe of how talented he was. A fine job to go out on.

The Drop also does a good job at handling its tone. As per Lehane tradition, it’s got a very dark, downbeat story, and you feel the sense of foreboding dread throughout. You know from the first scene that this side of Brooklyn is not a nice place, and the movie sticks to its guns and makes itself a dark descent into Bob’s personal Hell. But there’re also some nice touches of dark humor, usually supplied by the remarkably deadpan Gandolfini.

But even with all these good things, it seems Lehane and director Michael R. Roskam forgot to add good storytelling. This is a movie where the basic story could’ve been a strong one, but the way it was told didn’t work. A lot of this comes down to pacing; it was slower than it needed to be, with long stretches of the movie leaving me waiting for something to happen. The movie also has some skewed priorities, focusing too much on the more mundane aspects of the story, leaving the plot very sluggish and meandering. I’m not joking when I say that in this crime drama about dirty money, there’s probably just as much emphasis on Bob’s paranoia about his new dog being taken away.

I desperately wanted to like The Drop, and there were definitely some good qualities, especially the performances by the two lead but poor storytelling and arthritic pacing bogged them down. It’s definitely my least favorite Dennis Lehane adaptation to date, and I believe he should stick to writing books. Still, Tom Hardy’s such a good actor that he makes the film bearable.

2.5/5 Paws