The Drop (2014)
Directed by Michaël R. Roskam
Bob Saginowski finds himself at the center of a robbery gone awry and entwined in an investigation that digs deep into the neighborhood's past where friends, families, and foes all work together to make a living - no matter the cost.
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21 films that influenced The Drop
What critics say influenced The Drop
His shuffling, awkward manner and heavy accent seem to have taken their inspiration from a mixture of Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront and Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa.
In many ways it’s a turn that reminds of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront and Sylvester Stallone in Rocky , that blue collar performance where a humbling charm covers a raging beast within, Hardy’s quiet intensity deployed to startling effect alongside a warmth that makes his Bob a character to like, as well as to be fearful of.
He gives another mannered performance in The Drop: as the outwardly meek and simple bartender Bob Saginowski, he seems to be doing his version of Brando in On the Waterfront, though his slurred delivery and stunned-mullet expression might also remind you of a comic such as Chris O'Dowd.
It’s an endlessly rich performance, unpredictable and sharp-edged, with a vulnerability that is, I swear to you, reminiscent of Brando in On the Waterfront.
There are echoes of Brando’s Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront” in Hardy’s Bob.
A seemingly humble man of few words and little education, Bob has a Rocky Balboa vibe about him (which is enhanced by his chaste courtship of the bookish Nadia), plus a little of Brando’s Terry Malloy from On the Waterfront.
In many ways it’s a turn that reminds of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront and Sylvester Stallone in Rocky , that blue collar performance where a humbling charm covers a raging beast within, Hardy’s quiet intensity deployed to startling effect alongside a warmth that makes his Bob a character to like, as well as to be fearful of.
Hardy, the hunky Englishman who was the masked villain Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises,” is a revelation in a meek meat-head role that recalls Sylvester Stallone in the original “Rocky.”
And Nadia (Noomi Rapace) is a timid Rocky-like local girl, who warily welcomes Bob into her life after he finds a mewling pit-bull puppy in her trash can.
Dennis Lehane’s short story, “Animal Rescue,” has a touch of “Rocky” about it on the big screen, a big galoot softened by a pet and the woman who seems to come with that pet.
Just as "Rocky" was a love letter to an urban neighborhood trapped in a sports cliche, Roskam crafts a crime story that soars in its attention to local detail.
Part “Rocky,” part “On the Waterfront,” and part image boost for the pit-bull breed, the film is directed by Michael R. Roskam, who made “Bullhead,” the Belgian stunner set in the illegal beef-hormone market.
Director Michaël R. Roskam (Bullhead) burrows into the neighborhood nexus of crime and the church with a familiarity that recalls Scorsese’s Mean Streets, as does the picture’s ear for the music of scrappy, half-heard bar conversations.
Following in the a tradition of gritty underbelly, anti-Godfather-glamour, street crime movies in the Mean Streets mould, The Drop is penned by Dennis (Gone Baby Gone) Lehane, directed by Belgian Michaël (Bullhead) Roskam, and features the late James Gandolfini in his final role, alongside Noomi Rapace, Tom Hardy, and the cutest pit bull puppy in Brooklyn.
Bob's frequent trips to a local Catholic church call to mind Scorsese's prototypical gangster movie Mean Streets; t he theft of mob money, meanwhile, was the catalyst in the recent Andrew Dominik joint Killing Them Softly .
The direction needs to conjure a tone that could encompass both “Marty” and “Mean Streets” – a Paddy Chayefsky-like tale of lonely working people finding love, and a Scorsese-like riff on the tangled roots of wrongdoing in a crime-ridden precinct.
The crime drama is written by Dennis Lehane, the author of the short story (Animal Rescue) that inspired it and the novelist whose work was previously adapted to the big screen in movies like Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Mystic River (2003).
The film's distinctly working-class Catholic vibe is best attributed to Mystic River's Dennis Lehane, whose source material—a 2009 short story called "Animal Rescue"—has been expanded by the author himself into a script that probably worked better on page (and in his original setting of Boston's scrappy Dorchester).
Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam, making his U.S. debut after the Oscar-nominated Bullhead (2011), reprises the earlier film's seedy look and murky morality, though this time around he's got a much better screenplay, the first ever by much-adapted novelist Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island).
Dennis Lehane’s first adaptation of his own work feels minor compared with “Mystic River,” “Gone Baby Gone” and “Shutter Island,” but it’s not without its low-key pleasures, including a sturdy final screen performance from the late James Gandolfini .
Adapted by esteemed crime writer Dennis Lehane from his short story “Animal Rescue,” the movie doesn’t have the same cynicism as past adaptions of the author’s work (“Mystic River,” “Gone Baby Gone”), but it’s a grimy little crime drama that harkens back to the great Sidney Lumet films of the 1970s.
It is also the first screenplay by Mystic River and Shutter Island author Dennis Lehane.The combination of Lehane’s terse, punchy dialogue and cleverly constructed plot with Roskam’s fondness for character and fresh eye for American locales makes for an idiosyncratic, slow-burning tale that ultimately satisfies.
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Beloved by generations of neighborhood elbow-benders, Uncle Marv’s is one of the places “where all the things happen that you aren’t allowed to see,” according to earnest and somewhat unreadable bartender Bob Saginowski, played by Tom Hardy, who may be channeling early De Niro (according to my editor) but sometimes seems almost autistically awkward, like Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man” (according to me).
The movie is more kindred to David Mamet’s American Buffalo than Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.
The crime drama is written by Dennis Lehane, the author of the short story (Animal Rescue) that inspired it and the novelist whose work was previously adapted to the big screen in movies like Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Mystic River (2003).
Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam, making his U.S. debut after the Oscar-nominated Bullhead (2011), reprises the earlier film's seedy look and murky morality, though this time around he's got a much better screenplay, the first ever by much-adapted novelist Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island).
Adapted by esteemed crime writer Dennis Lehane from his short story “Animal Rescue,” the movie doesn’t have the same cynicism as past adaptions of the author’s work (“Mystic River,” “Gone Baby Gone”), but it’s a grimy little crime drama that harkens back to the great Sidney Lumet films of the 1970s.
While Lehane’s expert touch on atmosphere and character are felt throughout his film adaptations ( Gone Baby Gone & Mystic River among them), not celebrated enough is the spiritual depth and its religious complexities felt by his tortured characters, who struggle to abide to a Catholic morality within the dog-eat-dog would they inhabit.
"The Drop's" screenplay was written by Dennis Lehane ("Mystic River," "Gone Baby Gone"), who, despite moving the action from his usual Boston to Brooklyn, still fills the neighborhood with some gritty characters and dark secrets.
As with other great performances seen posthumously (James Dean in “Giant,” John Cazale in “The Deer Hunter,” Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”), our knowledge of the loss informs the movie.
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But compared to this summer’s terrific “Locke,” which was 85 minutes of Hardy talking on the phone while driving to London, it feels like “The Godfather.”
As with other great performances seen posthumously (James Dean in “Giant,” John Cazale in “The Deer Hunter,” Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”), our knowledge of the loss informs the movie.