THE LITTLE THINGS is about two police officers so obsessed with tracking down a serial killer it causes their lives and even their sanities to unravel. Thematically it vaguely resembles films like THE PLEDGE and THE CONVERSATION, though with quite a different execution.
Denzel Washington's character, a former city cop, is forced out to a smalltime county police job in the sticks after a bad parting from the LAPD that no one wants to talk about. Five years later, he goes to LA on some routine police business when the killer he never caught strikes again with the same M. O., and just like that he's obsessed. He takes time off and gets a cheap hotel room in order to start working the case again. Through this he meets his replacement in the LAPD Homicide unit played by Rami Malek and they pursue the killer together.
For the bulk of the film the two pursue who they think is the killer (played by Jared Leto), but neither they nor we can tell if it really is him, or if Leto is just playing an elaborate cat and mouse game for the fun of it because he's a true-crime buff. I think it was the intent of the film to keep us guessing but director John Lee Hancock doesn't do nearly enough to balance the procedural investigative footwork and whodunnit with Washington's and Malek's psychological spiraling, showing it's cards early and often.
This is a character-driven thriller with terrible, unbelievable characters. Washington at times seems too competent and other times he's falling to pieces, and these shifts and turns come and go without rhyme or reason. Malek goes through the same spin-the-wheel set of random turns. The film comes to pivot heavily around the intrigue of Leto's character, but everything about him is pieced together to be an answer for why Washington and Malek are acting so desperately obsessive. He's such a whacky, weird and silly character you can't take him seriously and wonder why anyone else is.
As a seedy criminal procedural, on a couple occasions there's promise but it's surrounded by innumerable ridiculous situations, foremost being, why is a cop who is way out of his jurisdiction and five years removed from being a homicide detective being invited to help investigate a murder scene? That's a plot shortcut for a police comedy, not a film that wants to be taken seriously.
Acting is mediocre to poor. Washington, playing a broken cop, just can't help throwing in his trademark confident swagger from time to time leaving us confused. Malek is doing his best to play a diet cola version of Benicio Del Toro, even occasionally mumbling his lines. Jared Leto is basically playing the same character he did in Bladerunner 2049 - aloof, detached and locked into some quasi-shroom daydream that isn't compelling, just annoying.
This is a film that told me how it would end at about the midway point and yet I hoped it would redeem itself with something, anything. No, it was precisely as limp as it promised, literally taking the viewer out the middle of nowhere and leaving them there.
Denzel Washington's character, a former city cop, is forced out to a smalltime county police job in the sticks after a bad parting from the LAPD that no one wants to talk about. Five years later, he goes to LA on some routine police business when the killer he never caught strikes again with the same M. O., and just like that he's obsessed. He takes time off and gets a cheap hotel room in order to start working the case again. Through this he meets his replacement in the LAPD Homicide unit played by Rami Malek and they pursue the killer together.
For the bulk of the film the two pursue who they think is the killer (played by Jared Leto), but neither they nor we can tell if it really is him, or if Leto is just playing an elaborate cat and mouse game for the fun of it because he's a true-crime buff. I think it was the intent of the film to keep us guessing but director John Lee Hancock doesn't do nearly enough to balance the procedural investigative footwork and whodunnit with Washington's and Malek's psychological spiraling, showing it's cards early and often.
This is a character-driven thriller with terrible, unbelievable characters. Washington at times seems too competent and other times he's falling to pieces, and these shifts and turns come and go without rhyme or reason. Malek goes through the same spin-the-wheel set of random turns. The film comes to pivot heavily around the intrigue of Leto's character, but everything about him is pieced together to be an answer for why Washington and Malek are acting so desperately obsessive. He's such a whacky, weird and silly character you can't take him seriously and wonder why anyone else is.
As a seedy criminal procedural, on a couple occasions there's promise but it's surrounded by innumerable ridiculous situations, foremost being, why is a cop who is way out of his jurisdiction and five years removed from being a homicide detective being invited to help investigate a murder scene? That's a plot shortcut for a police comedy, not a film that wants to be taken seriously.
Acting is mediocre to poor. Washington, playing a broken cop, just can't help throwing in his trademark confident swagger from time to time leaving us confused. Malek is doing his best to play a diet cola version of Benicio Del Toro, even occasionally mumbling his lines. Jared Leto is basically playing the same character he did in Bladerunner 2049 - aloof, detached and locked into some quasi-shroom daydream that isn't compelling, just annoying.
This is a film that told me how it would end at about the midway point and yet I hoped it would redeem itself with something, anything. No, it was precisely as limp as it promised, literally taking the viewer out the middle of nowhere and leaving them there.
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