The Drop
By Ian Brockway
Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam master of the shockingly visceral “Bullhead” that dealt with paranoia in the butcher and beef industry, now tries his hand at a mainstream urban crime drama.
“The Drop” highlights the sneaky business of a Brooklyn bar-owning family.
Dramatic heavy Tom Hardy stars as Bob, a well meaning, sad faced and laconic bartender who merely wants to survive amid the dark subterranean environment of a walnut paneled bar that is as confined as a submarine. Day after day, smoky and prune-mapped faces accost him in want and greed.
He struggles to keep his unassuming head upright, in treating both gangster and average guy with some equality.
The bar, “Cousin Marv’s,” is the occasional location for a “drop”, that is, a holding place for protection money or questionable cash that the mafia collects.
One night, two masked men crack into the bar as Bob closes up.
Fear ensues.
The next night, Bob hears an animal noise coming from the trash. A bull terrier puppy is inside, as adorable as can be, but gorily beaten.
Are the two incidents related?
Bob doesn’t know, but he is smitten with the puppy and discovers a skittish but helpful novice vet, Nadia (Noomi Rapace).
Bob resolves not to lose the dog which he names Rocco.
The following day, the patriarch, Cousin Marv (James Gandolfini, in his final outing) gives Bob argumentative business over his forthcoming behavior with investigators. Marv is a former thug and loan shark, now gone squinty and diminished in importance.
More alarmingly, Bob is hounded by a loping yet intense man, the volatile Eric Deeds (Matthias Schoenaerts). And just to make everything extra icy, the bar is badgered by Chechen gangsters who want their money returned.
This story is clearly in the mode of other films like “The Town” and “Gone Baby Gone” with stock character roles that don’t reach out of their gritty orange gray zones. Both Gandolfini and Schoenaerts are somewhat scary bruisers throughout. Schoenaerts reprises his hard and silent persona established in “Rust and Bone” and the previously mentioned “Bullhead” while Hardy gives his best Brandoesque version of Terry from “On the Waterfront”.
Gandolfini, too, retains the clipped and punchy repartee from “The Sopranos,” although his Marv is more melancholy and pensive than threatening.
But though it may wear some easily recognizable cement shoes, “The Drop” holds fast to some steely apprehension and nervousness, largely due to the blank docility of Bob and his desire for a more civil world. His inner tension combined with an outer facade of gentle passivity makes Bob a human twin to the puppy he yearns to shelter from harm.
The dog itself is a voluptuously hopeful gray ribbon that pulls Bob’s dream of security closer together tethering Nadia to his hip.
Schoenaerts is riveting once more as a blandly nonchalant, yet toxically intent drifter who simply takes up space.
“The Drop” has plenty of the mealy hard bitten seediness we expect coupled with wincing faces in pain, shock and other pulpy emotions.
Yet, it is Roskam’s trademark circular claustrophobia that makes this a fine film to mark.
The Giver
Lois Lowry’s book The Giver is now a film. Despite some slick direction by Phillip Noyce (Salt), the film is a decidedly lukewarm sci-fi chase, which slips and slides from black and white to sepia, then into color with a dreamy facility that gives the cinematography a singular appeal.
We have young Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) who is a uniform teen in a cubistic white-washed world of gray reminiscent of Pete Seeger’s song “Little Boxes.” Each dwelling resembles a kind of bauhaus jigsaw puzzle, utilitarian and devoid of color.
Jonas and everyone in his family “unit” does what they are told; each citizen has a purpose and a role. All events are governed in a very Orwellian manner. There are no colors, no vibrant emotions or conflicts.
Obstacles and deviations are shielded by daily injections taken by the community. Jonas and his friends exhale a bland bliss.
But The Elders see great things ahead for Jonas and act accordingly. When Jonas sees his infant brother marked as “unspecified” and destined to be “released,” he decides to take action.
While the context of the story has a retro feel, recalling every film from “Logan’s Run,” “Soylent Green” and “Fahrenheit 941,” “The Giver” feels stuck in retrograde, having an “After school special” texture and not really going anywhere that is original or provocative.
Jonas battles against the system, lost in a blinding white network of homogenized houses with baby in tow. The dialogue is static with Jonas mostly in a voice-over narration, talking at length about adventure and expression, color and the emotion of love. Thwaites delivery grows monotone and the expression on his face (one of shocked dismay) seldom varies.
There is a laughably flat appearance by Jeff Bridges here as The Giver who has all the pathos of an animatronic figure in Disneyworld’s Hall of Presidents. Granted, it is Bridges’ voice, but you don’t see his mouth move all that much. For a man who is the keeper of all emotions, words and memories of the past, he moves stiffly with odd jerks throughout.
Meryl Streep, who is usually full of verve, also gives a strange decaffeinated performance as a Head Elder, a kind of Big Sister. Her role could be filled by anyone.
Katie Holmes (in a somewhat ironic turn with her history of Scientology) doesn’t emote at all and the same applies to Alexander Skarsgård. While it is true that a bland delivery is needed, it doesn’t call for boredom. The original “Stepford Wives” made for riveting stuff as did “Soylent Green” and other 1970s classics. The acting has a television-like tepid quality that lacks point and just goes on course.
Tweens may get a kick out of a cameo by Taylor Swift as The Giver’s daughter, but they’ll only get Taylor’s usual, gooey-eyed looks into the camera.
The crux of it all involves a run for a young boy’s life against a totalitarian society that has been done too many times to carry a surprise now.
The one interest is the direction of Noyce which has a definite Kubrick influence and style with long shots of the puzzle-like houses as they loom in the distance like faceless polyps usurping and watching all on a grid. Not to mention some billowy clouds that hover on a horizon, providing a tease of options.
It is reported that Jeff Bridges has wanted to bring this book to the screen for many years. He once said that he himself filmed a version on a home movie camera with his dad, Lloyd Bridges, in the title role.
One wonders if Jeff’s organic version would have been better; this adaption of “The Giver” feels stingy. It is flat, repetitive and serial in tone, and, if you are older than 12, you will probably wish to be given a different film.
Write Ian at [email protected]
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