'The Little Things' Review
R: Violent/disturbing images, language, and full nudity
Runtime: 2 Hrs and 7 Minutes
Production Company: Gran Via Productions
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Director: John Lee Hancock
Writer: John Lee Hancock
Cast: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto, Natalie Morales
Release Date: January 29, 2021
Kern County Deputy Sheriff Joe “Deke” Deacon (Washington) is sent to Los Angeles for what should have been a quick evidence-gathering assignment. Instead, he becomes embroiled in the search for a killer who is terrorizing the city. Leading the hunt, L.A. Sheriff Department Sergeant Jim Baxter (Malek), impressed with Deke’s cop instincts, unofficially engages his help. But as they track the killer, Baxter is unaware that the investigation is dredging up echoes of Deke’s past, uncovering disturbing secrets that could threaten more than his case.
When the legendary Denzel Washington is starring in your film, you can expect the majority of its positive reception to be about his performance. Even when the film itself is weak, Uncle Denzel knows how to hold a picture up with his own two hands. Remember Roman J. Israel, Esq.? It might’ve been a dull and incoherent movie but it got him an Oscar nomination because he was so compelling to watch. Also the Academy didn’t want to nominate James Franco for his performance in The Disaster Artist because of the sexual harassment allegations made against him but I digress. Granted, he’s not running The Little Things completely solo, but he’s the only actor in the cast who delivers a decent performance. He is the only thing that makes this movie remotely watchable. Though the material he’s given is paper-thin, Washington makes it work with his natural charismatic nature, nailing the tone of the script while also trying to liven it up. Other than that, there is no substance to this movie… at all.
Recently, writer/director John Lee Hancock revealed that The Little Things had been in the making for over 30 years. The first draft was completed in 1993 and several directors, such as Spielberg, Eastwood, and DeVito, passed on it because it was too dark. Now, if this script was “too dark” in ‘93, you know it must feel dated by now… and it certainly does. How many crime drama narratives focus on cops/sheriffs/detectives trying to confront the sins of their past while solving a case? Far too many. What if the case involves catching a serial killer who has killed a string of women in a remote, small county? Oh, also far too many. With such a familiar and overdone premise, you better deliver a narrative that’s engaging, inventive, or captivating. Otherwise, you end up looking like The Snowman. However, while The Snowman was undeniably, laughably god awful, it was relatively entertaining. The Little Things is just straight up dull as it delivers its underdeveloped narrative in the most lifeless way imaginable.
For a screenplay that’s been making the rounds for three decades, it lacks both nuance and personality as it executes its dark tone so poorly that it comes across as juvenile. It emphasizes disturbing graphic imagery of lifeless nude women while everyone who interacts with each other speaks through weak and awkward dialogue. The story tries too hard to take pieces from Fincher and Villeneuve in terms of delivering a dark tone, but it never finds its footing, for it’s too safe to be anything violent despite its disturbing imagery of mutilated dead women. It doesn’t help that each actor, including Denzel, delivers their lines so monotonously that oftentimes it sounds like everyone is straight-up mumbling, especially Rami Malek as Sergeant Jim. Malek is mumblecore-ing through this film, looking like he didn’t even want to be on set with his cold stares. You might have to adjust your volume ample times just to hear him — or anyone else, for that matter — speak.
Denzel Washington often tackles dark roles where he plays flawed characters who have either a troubled past or a troubled present. As Sheriff Deke, you can easily figure out his entire ordeal right off the bat. He’s at a very unsettling part in his career where everyone around him addresses him with caution and hesitance. Hancock uses his backstory as a plot device to try to keep the audience guessing through unsubtle imagery and dialogue instead of genuinely providing character development for him. If you see a cop with a troubled past in a movie, you can easily guess what they did. I can imagine somebody reading Hancock’s script and saying, “Okay, this is something you can work with. What’s his arc?” and Hancock responding with, “This is his arc!” The film picks up when Deke teams up with Detective Jim, but much of the film meanders at a slow pace before getting there.
Jared Leto is literally awful. Malek wasn’t doing it for me, but when Leto comes on screen, he steals the spotlight of stink as he delivers his lines in a bizarre stoner-meets-hick accent that only a graduate of the Robert Pattinson School of Bad Accents could comprehend. It’s funny how Jared Leto won Best Supporting Actor in 2013 for Dallas Buyers Club and then proved to be anything but a good one with each following project. When his character appears on screen, you immediately scream, “GUILTY!” You just know he’s killed someone because he’s shockingly creepy. There’s no subtlety in his performance, just creepy dialogue and mannerisms.
Keeping your eyes open until the end of the film isn’t even worth it because that finale is borderline angering for many reasons. When you finally get to Joe’s backstory reveal, it makes an unfair and ill-minded comparison between Joe’s past actions and Jim’s present actions, on top of throwing in the meaning of the film's title. It’s cringe on top of cringe and by the end, it’s simply unsatisfying.
Man, 30 years and this is what John Lee Hancock came up with? Maybe this was put on a shelf for a reason. But coming from the writer/director of The Blind Side, I shouldn’t have expected much.
