Why I Didn’t Dig THE DROP As Much As Everyone Else

Now playing at an indie art house near me:

THE DROP (Dir. Michaël R. Roskam, 2014)

This gritty Brooklyn-set crime drama has gotten a lot of acclaim – it’s at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes – but it really didn’t make the impact on me that it did on the majority of critics. 

I mean, I highly enjoyed the gruff presence of James Gandolfini’s last screen appearance, and the quiet power of lead Tom Hardy is a study in subtlety, but the looming darkness, particularly in the case of the creepy antagonist played by Matthias Schoenaerts, felt empty and I found the narrative lacking.

Hardy plays a nice-guy bartender at Cousin Marv’s, a working-class bar run by Gandolfini but owned by the Chechen mob. Their seedy establishment is one of many that could be randomly chosen any given night to be a “drop bar.” When the bar is robbed by a couple of loser strivers (shades of more than one episodes of The Sopranos), the menacing Chechens breathe down the necks of Gandolfini and Hardy to get their money back.

Meanwhile, while walking home Hardy finds a whimpering wounded pit bull inside a neighbor’s garbage can at the edge of their property. In sort of a “meet crude,” Noomi Rapace as the neighbor agrees to help Hardy raise the puppy, and their relationship begins.

Threatening the situation is the bearded, hooded, and all sinister Schoenaerts, who claims it’s his dog and insinuates that he and Rapace used to be together.

Now, after seeing THE HUNT and CALVARY, I get nervous when it comes to the fate of a dog in these thrillers. Especially when the Schoenaerts’ lowlife heavy threatens its life and tells Hardy he can have it for $10,000. 

The climax is, of course, on a drop night. Schoenaerts forces Rapace to go with him at gunpoint to Cousin Marv’s, with the plan of not only getting his $10K from Hardy, but the rest of the money in the safe.

Spoilers! This is where the so called surprise twist comes in, involving Hardy relaying some crucial back story that lays down the law to Schoenaerts, and a little then some. Hardy owns this scene for sure, but why wasn’t this done earlier? Why did he let the ghastly guy creep on the sidelines for so long beforehand? The scene that the two first speak has Schoenaerts invite himself in to Hardy’s house and he takes his umbrella on the way out. Why not deal with him then?

It’s also depressing that Rapace has such an underwritten, only slightly disguised damsel in distress role. Almost makes one forget how much ass she kicked in those GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO movies. And Schoenaerts, who was in director Roskam's first film, BULLHEAD, is so dead-eyed and one note that he never registers as anything but a standard issue soulless bad guy.

THE DROP is based on a 2009 short story by Dennis Lahane called “Animal Rescue” that he fleshed out into this screenplay and a new novel adaptation. The shift in Lahane’s locales from his usual Boston stomping grounds to Brooklyn doesn’t make much difference, this scenario could go down in any crime-ridden working class urban jungle. It’s a mediocre descendant of MEAN STREETS no matter where it takes place.

Yet Gandolfini’s last grand appearance on the big screen deserves to be seen; his pissed off, formerly powerful character gets both laughs with his expert wiseacre delivery and pity with his put upon bitching about his station in life.

So in conclusion, Hardy and Gandolfini are great in it, but without them - fuggeddaboutit - THE DROP is no great shakes.

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Jacques Audiard's RUST AND BONE Out Today On Blu Ray & DVD

Releasing today on Blu ray and DVD:

RUST AND BONE 

(Dir. Jacques Audiard, 2012)

Jacques Audiard pulls off a distinctly different sense of tone and timing from his last two acclaimed award-winning films, A PROPHET and THE BEAT MY HEART SKIPPED in this raw love story between Matthias Schoenaerts as a directionless single father, who makes money by competing in illegal boxing matches, and Marion Cotillard as a killer whale trainer, who loses her legs in an “on the job” accident.

It’s definitely not a “meet cute” when Schoenaerts’ Alain first encounters Cotillard’s Stéphanie (pre-accident) at a night club in Antibes in southern France. Alain (“Ali” to his friends and family) is on his first night as a bouncer at the club when a fight breaks out and Stéphanie, dolled up for a night on the town, gets caught in the middle of it.

Acting the gentleman, Ali insists on driving the roughed up Stéphanie home to her apartment, only to find that she has a controlling abusive boyfriend waiting for her there. Nevertheless, Ali gives her his phone number - “if you need it” - before exiting.

Not long after that, the vividly scary spectacle of a large Sea World-type stage collapsing during an Orca show (to the tune of Katy Perry’s “Firework,” mind you) leaves Stéphanie without legs below her knees, via seamless CGI that shows us how far such special effects have come since Gary Sinise’s similar predicament in “Forrest Gump.”

In the midst of her painful recuperation, Stéphanie decides to call Ali, who’s by then working as a guard at a security firm. The stoic strongman begins taking care of the legless lady, and in a sweet scene set at the beach, he carries her into the ocean and she appears to have a cathartic experience wading in the sundrenched waves. 

Stéphanie gets close enough to Ali that she even accompanies him on his street fighting ring runs, but has to stay in the car as women aren’t allowed. Ever so casually, while cleaning up after a meal, Ali asks Stéphanie if she wants to have sex. Embarrassed by the bluntness of the proposal, yet intrigued, Stéphanie agrees and afterwards she appears regenerated, on her way to feeling whole again. An immersive shot in her empowering post coitus sequence shows Stéphanie, now outfitted with prosthetic legs, visiting her old workplace and re-connecting through body language with the enormous whale that caused her accident through a giant glass partition.

Unfortunately, Ali continues to see other women, and his relationship with Stéphanie suffers. What also suffers, albeit only slightly, is the movie’s focus in its second half as its storyline gets messier than it needs to be. Especially when Ali’s sister (Corinne Masiero), who is taking care of his 5-year old son (Armand Verdure), loses her job due to video surveillance set up by Ali’s company. This causes Ali to leave town, leaving everything up in the air with Stéphanie. 

The brooding Schoenaerts, previously best known for his leading role in Michael R. Roskam’s 2010 crime drama BULLHEAD, has such a dry cold demeanor that his character can be hard to relate to, but edges of humanity come through at crucial moments, particularly when he realizes late in the game his feelings for Cotillard’s Stéphanie.

Cotillard, displaying comparable poise and power to her incredible Oscar-winning portrayal of Édith Piaf in LA VIE EN ROSE, owns the heart of RUST AND BONE. She wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award this time around (and she lost the Golden Globe for the part to Jessica Chastain for ZERO DARK THIRTY) but she’s taken home a few well deserved awards for the performance (at the BFI, Cabourg, and Telluride Film Festivals).

Audiard’s A PROPHET cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine captures the couple, and the sunny scenery surrounding them in a visual style that’s often poetic. Based on a short story collection by Canadian author Craig Davidson, Audiard’s screenplay, co-written with Thomas Bidegain, keeps the dialogue spare and simple, which helps it stay clear of clichés.

In this random romance, in which tough times tinged with tragedy can bring disparate damaged people together, Schoenaerts’ thick-headedness and lack of sentiment can numb one’s heart, but Cotillard’s longing and belief in love will melt it.

Special Features: Commentary from director Jacques Audiard and co-writer Thomas Bidegain, deleted scenes, and a few featurettes including “Making RUST AND BONE: A Film by Antonin Peretkatko.”

* This review originally appeared in the Jan. 17th, 2013 edition of the Raleigh News & Observer.

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