A relic of the past led by three actors who don't belong in a movie with this much star power. Especially when you realize that the director can't sell his truly intriguing script.
Journeyman John Lee Hancock’s (The Blind Side), The Little Things, hit HBO Max this weekend alongside the theaters currently open to give it a theatrical run. The film stars three Oscar winning actors in Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto in a crime drama set in 1990s Los Angeles as Denzel’s, Joe, and Rami’s, Jim, try and unravel local killings of young women. The stage is set, the stars are aligned, and yet The Little Things misses on most accounts, but it isn’t without some intriguing merit.
This is a movie that rides on the shoulders of it’s star power. With the trio of Malek, Leto, and Washington it seems as if this was a great recipe for success. Unfortunately, they all give poor performances. At the least, Denzel typically charms his way to a fine performance, but it looks like he’s sleepwalking through every motion his character is sent through. Leto is noticeably creepy for his small screen time, but all of his lines are terrible and depressingly unconvincing. So much of his dialogue and performance is living in the shadow of many other great crime drama fiends. Then comes Rami Malek and the jury is still out on his ability as an actor, but they’re close to unanimously deciding he doesn’t have it. He is sorely miscast, he also seems like he’s sleepwalking, and honestly, he gave off more serial killer vibes in this than anyone else in the film. His monotone voice and deadpan look was frustrating to sit through when he was cast as a character that was clearly written for a better, more charismatic actor. Strike one for The Little Things for all of the performers mailing it in.
John Lee Hancock is an avatar for journeyman film-makers. His eye-rolling approach to The Blind Side, his forgettable streaming debut with The Highwaymen, and a wannabe Social Network with The Founder, are just a few examples of a guy lacking a voice in the director’s chair. He exists to fill that spot to sell movies based on social media awareness. I promise you, no one is seeing the McDonald’s movie for John Lee Hancock, it sells because it has a former Batman in the lead role, and McDonald’s is popular. So much of this movie has promising ideas in the script that Hancock also wrote, but he doesn’t benefit his genuinely intriguing ideas. He relays information in a way that is downright boring to listen to, and watch. Much of the editing during basic dialogue scenes looks like something birthed out of Bohemian Rhapsody to elicit some sense of snappy pace and dialogue, but it doesn’t work. This doesn’t fall on anyone but him because he holds the reins on the two most important positions of the production. If he can’t visually sell his so-so material, and edits around it in a way that appears nonsensical and out of tone with the slow burn approach, then John Lee Hancock simply missed his marks.
As I mentioned above, Hancock’s script is admirable in how it approaches the slow burn of a throwback cop procedural. It’s one that is far more obsessed with playing within the minds of the main characters and their hyper obsessive nature of unraveling the mystery. By all accounts this is a movie that isn’t as interested in peeling away at the uncertainties of the narrative, as it is with contemplating how the people who are sent to solve these cases are as deeply troubled as the suspects who are out of their reach. This allows the movie to maintain a steady flow of questions and unobtainable answers, which certainly kept my attention from beginning to end. Many people are going to be frustrated by many choices in this film technically and narratively, but I believe it stems from a place that puts The Little Things at a disadvantage. Much of social media’s response to the film has been overwhelmingly negative, to so-so at best. Which is fair. The foundation of the criticism seems to be rooted more in what it isn’t like, rather than what it really is. There are many comparisons to David Fincher’s, Se7en, which is one of the cornerstones of crime dramas. The Little Things isn’t anything like that film beyond the fundamentals of crime dramas. Where Se7en is more interested in leading into a climactic ending that challenges the characters on so many levels as they nearly reach their goal, The Little Things is far more interested in their characters living with it as a way to exemplify why they make the decisions they do. The Little Things goes for the ending that is right for it’s story, and not the end of the audience’s story. There is something refreshingly admirable about that even if it doesn’t entirely work.
The Little Things is a strange movie. It’s one that feels perfect for a January season where not many people will lose value in the dollars they spent on it, but many people will catch it on streaming anyways for the price of a subscription fee, and still dislike it. Despite my weird appreciation towards some of the decisions in the latest stages, and being taken on a journey that I was never bored with, this movie doesn’t really work. As I said at the top, this is a movie engineered to be driven by the performers and they all, respectfully, stink. For a movie clearly designed with that in mind, it is a testament to Hancock’s skill as a director, in which I’m saying, he is really struggling. Between Denzel Washington in this, and Kevin Costner in The Highwaymen, I’m not sure which beloved legacy actor gives a more, “I really don’t give a damn about this movie” attitude. Maybe it’s the material, but I’m going to go with the constant here, and that is John Lee Hancock. The potential is there for this movie to be something in a better director’s hands, because as I’ve lauded, the script isn’t that bad. In a sub-genre dominated by cops being the heroes of their stories, it is nice to see a movie that realizes that they can also be the suspects of their story. That is by no means a spoiler, and this isn’t the first film to tackle that idea. Many better films have done it, but the slow burn and relatively quieter climax made me feel a true sense of payoff. Not exclusively for me, but for the characters. The Little Things isn’t a movie I’d recommend unless you’re distanced from the discourse. I think there is enough merit in here to generate conversation around it’s morally muddled conclusion, as well as everything before that, to spark some interesting debates, but at the end of the day it's a film that is a shell of itself and needs far more magic from the most important players in the production to be a good movie.