The Drop - DVD Review

'has copious opportunity to look at what makes Bob (Tom Hardy) tick, but somehow wastes time watching him learn how to dog sit and tend bar'

Michaël R. Roskam follows up the much acclaimed Bullhead with this US production that keeps his previous film's star (Matthias Schoenaerts) in a supporting turn but somehow loses some of his incisiveness into the minds of men. The Drop, written not by Roskam this time but by Dennis Lehane, has copious opportunity to look at what makes Bob (Tom Hardy) tick, but somehow wastes time watching him learn how to dog sit and tend bar.

That is, of course, part of the point, for perhaps Bob is not all that he seems, but regardless, Roskam does surprisingly little to give us a glimpse of Bob and instead focuses on the broken dog metaphor. In place of Bob's characterisation Hardy plays him as unconvincingly uncomplicated, which often doesn't work. John Ortiz' superfluous detective tries to create an investigative narrative in a film that doesn't need one.

It's not all bad though and The Drop proves, eventually, to be an effective Thriller, if not up to Lehane's high watermarks as a novelist: this is his first feature screenplay. The Drop marks the final time we shall see James Gandolfini on screen and he is at his imperious best. Cousin Marv is as close as the film gets to looking into what makes people tick, though still here there is not enough for Gandolfini to create something really outstanding with.

Roskam's finale too is impressive. There is a very slow build throughout, driven in part by Schoenaerts' bully and the looming gangster threat. The realisation of the threat could so easily have been like much of the rest of the film: a little limp and uncommitted, but instead Roskam finally gives Hardy something to do and the film crackles to life. A shame it waited until the last fifteen minutes to do so.

The Drop is out on UK DVD and Blu-ray from Monday March 23rd 2015.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.