It took me two viewings of 'The Drop' to really appreciate everything it had to say. At first, I thought I was stepping into an action crime drama with Tom Hardy & James Gandolfini. However that's just not the case. This isn't a flash movie.
It feels more like a slice of life. Everything you take for granted. The faces you encounter. The things you do. The things you won't. Stuff going on all around you that is either uninteresting fading into the background or the type that doesn't concern you.
Maybe no better representation of that idea than the neighborhood bar featured at the center of this story. Uncle Marv (Gandolfini) used to own / run it, but now it's a front for the underworld mob who use it as a place to drop illicit money. Bob (Hardy) a man of few words, needless emotions and Marv's cousin tends bar.
Very early on it gets robbed and sets the tone. Both Marv & Bob have to tow the line to their criminal overlords, but Marv misses the glory days. He wants more. Money, respect, reputation and the lengths he'll go to get it are far from his grasp - something Bob tries to remind him - but perhaps in vain. While Bob finds new meaning in life when he rescues an abused and discarded dog. Leading to interactions with a neighborhood woman Nadia (Noomi Rapace) and her unstable ex boyfriend Eric Deeds (Matthias Schoenaerts). Who Bob has more than one unlikely connection to.
When the bar is chosen by the mob to be the drop point for the biggest business day of the year - the Superbowl - everything comes to a head in a very subdued, electric burst of life. Four people become intertwined in a moment and nothing will be the same afterwards.
Tom Hardy channels a type of energy in a character you don't see much of in movies. You might think Bob is stupid, but it couldn't be further from the truth. While James Gandolfini projects a bit of the simmering rage and narcissistic behavior he perfected in 'The Sopranos' as someone who can't let the past go and is caught up in himself. Noomi Rapace is both believable as a downtrodden lady who's seen better days and not wanting to be lonely anymore (much like Bob). Matthias Schoenaerts does his part justice of a neighborhood face not operating on all cylinders who thinks he's tougher and scarier than he actually is. Lastly veteran actor John Ortiz is dependable in the flick's need for a man with a badge sorting through the story beneath the surface.
There is no action. There is no big, complicated plot. 'The Drop' is really a straightforward movie about simple people. Some who make good choices, others that don't and the fallout. Recommended.
It feels more like a slice of life. Everything you take for granted. The faces you encounter. The things you do. The things you won't. Stuff going on all around you that is either uninteresting fading into the background or the type that doesn't concern you.
Maybe no better representation of that idea than the neighborhood bar featured at the center of this story. Uncle Marv (Gandolfini) used to own / run it, but now it's a front for the underworld mob who use it as a place to drop illicit money. Bob (Hardy) a man of few words, needless emotions and Marv's cousin tends bar.
Very early on it gets robbed and sets the tone. Both Marv & Bob have to tow the line to their criminal overlords, but Marv misses the glory days. He wants more. Money, respect, reputation and the lengths he'll go to get it are far from his grasp - something Bob tries to remind him - but perhaps in vain. While Bob finds new meaning in life when he rescues an abused and discarded dog. Leading to interactions with a neighborhood woman Nadia (Noomi Rapace) and her unstable ex boyfriend Eric Deeds (Matthias Schoenaerts). Who Bob has more than one unlikely connection to.
When the bar is chosen by the mob to be the drop point for the biggest business day of the year - the Superbowl - everything comes to a head in a very subdued, electric burst of life. Four people become intertwined in a moment and nothing will be the same afterwards.
Tom Hardy channels a type of energy in a character you don't see much of in movies. You might think Bob is stupid, but it couldn't be further from the truth. While James Gandolfini projects a bit of the simmering rage and narcissistic behavior he perfected in 'The Sopranos' as someone who can't let the past go and is caught up in himself. Noomi Rapace is both believable as a downtrodden lady who's seen better days and not wanting to be lonely anymore (much like Bob). Matthias Schoenaerts does his part justice of a neighborhood face not operating on all cylinders who thinks he's tougher and scarier than he actually is. Lastly veteran actor John Ortiz is dependable in the flick's need for a man with a badge sorting through the story beneath the surface.
There is no action. There is no big, complicated plot. 'The Drop' is really a straightforward movie about simple people. Some who make good choices, others that don't and the fallout. Recommended.