Jessica Pellegrino – General Assignment Reporter
Recently released, “The Drop” follows a bartender, played by Tom Hardy, in New York City who gets involved in a scheme to launder money for local gangsters. He participates in “money drops” in Brooklyn bars. But “The Drop” isn’t your average crime movie. It’s a beautiful story of gang relations and family dysfunction with the world’s most twisted love story mixed in.
“The Drop” is directed by Michael R. Roskam and written by Dennis Lehane. The film is based on Dennis Lehane’s 2009 short story, “Animal Rescue.” Lehane is most known for his 2011 film, “Shutter Island” a psychological thriller which starred Leonardo DiCaprio.
The movie was screened in the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released in theaters on Sept. 12, 2014. The knockout cast includes Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace, but most noteworthy, “The Drop” is the last performance of the late actor James Gandolfini.
Movies like “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas” take gangster lifestyle and romanticize it so that everyone who watches them will desire the lifestyle. Refreshingly, “The Drop” doesn’t romanticize the mob lifestyle. The movie doesn’t follow the lives of warlords and dons.
The characters in the movie are the bottom feeders and the mobs work mules. We see the effects of the gangster lifestyle on bartenders, waitresses and other laborers. These characters, including our main character played by Tom Hardy, are living meager lives and it’s honestly more relatable to me than a story of a millionaire gangster.
Tom Hardy deserves enough Oscars to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. This man can play any character. He has been a supervillain, a doctor and a soldier. And he’s played them all with beautifully. Hardy’s versatility definitely translated in “The Drop”.
In “The Drop”, Hardy plays a hard-working, yet arguably uneducated, bartender named Bob who is unfalteringly devoted to his cousin Marv, who is played by the late James Gandolfini. His dedication to his family, unsurprisingly gets him involved in some unsavory business. Marv, who owns the bar, allows the mob to use it as a “money drop” location. This has obvious consequences.
While all of this is happening, Bob finds an abused pit bull puppy in a trash can and adopts it. The dog serves as a catalyst for the “love story”, which I define loosely, between Bob and Nadia. Nadia helps Bob care for the animal. All is going well for the two until the dog’s original owner begins to stalk Bob.
“The Drop” is a realistic and artful rendition of a mob related crime story. I only have a few complaints. The trailer for the movie suggests it’s action movie qualities but in reality, the action is limited. The movie employs a slow action type of development. Movie watchers have to maintain their patience through the entire movie, waiting for characters and plot points to be revealed.
Though this most definitely helps build up tension in the film, I found I personally didn’t have the attention spans sometimes. I think it would have benefitted from moving just a little faster paced plot development. My only other complaint involved character development. I adored the secondary characters of Marv and Nadia. I think that the movie could have really benefitted from developing their characters more. They were truly interesting and I craved more.
Photo Credit: Alessandro Pautasso
