Bergorks
If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
anderspettersson-58444
As a lover of the trade and somewhat of an experienced viewer and judge of *character acting*. One can tell when an actress/actor are given opportunities as a consequence of genuine talent and MERIT --- and on the other hand when someone were NOT... Sometimes bad acting can ruin it. Big time. Not a sinister person and I´m sorry, but - Noomi Rapace is a mediocre "actress" at best. She lacks depth in anything she does on the big screen. Yes, she had a breakthrough with a part in a Swedish film (that was probably difficult to fail in). But then what?! Rapace's voice is as wonderfully dynamic and pleasurable as fingernails on a chalkboard. Every. Single. Line. I usually choose not to ever comment on anybody´s looks unless whoever is fortunate enough to be attractive, or was given an interesting and/or unique personal appearance that gives value to a specific character or the experience as a whole. However. When taking up space that someone genuinely talented and skillful should have had, perhaps an audience may be entitled to. If I´m 5´5" and a lousy ball technician that can´t jump, perhaps I shouldn´t be in the NBA. Some peoples' physical features can annoy enough to distract ones attention away from the character or plot, but often times the acting is skillful and strong enough to overcome this and instead use it to the advantage of the entirety of the film. Unfortunately the latter is far from happening here. With hardly mediocre acting skills and less than an attractive voice and looks, well...
adrian-43767
Clearly, this movie carries some violence and might not be everybody's cup of tea, but it is pillared by superb performances by Hardy - perhaps his best to date - Gandolfini, Rapace and Schoenaerts.Good dialogue, strong direction, impeccable photography, and a very credible storyline make this one of the more unexpected gems I have watched recently.Well deserved 8/10.
Joseph_Gillis
which is more relevant here than in most films, and might even be considered a sub-text for it.Perhaps more telling, though, is that the screenplay was adapted by author, Dennis Lehane from one of his short stories; I can recall successful short-story adaptations, but from such as Borges, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Conrad; more often than not, when adaptations of less-feted authors, the plot tends to be stretched to breaking point, where the screenwriter has too many gaps to fill, too much screen-time to pad, and where the story might not have been all that, to begin with.I haven't read the source Lehane short story, so I can only judge what's on the screen, but two things have jumped out at me after viewing the film: one, the conflict between the story's title, 'Animal Rescue', which suggests warmth and compassion, and the film's title, 'The Drop', which the opening voice-over informs us refers to gangsters practices of using legitimate businesses as temporary storage for illicit funds. But yet I don't believe the short story title is entirely ironic, because so much of the film is devoted to revealing Tom Hardy's lead barman Bob character's care and attention for a brutalised and neglected dog. The conflict between those titles suggests more that Lehane was badly compromised between commercial film-making demands, and the intimacy of his short-story characterisation.The other problem I had is the long slow build up, and what it led up to: it's not quite 'deus ex machina' but I had difficulty reconciling the climax with the characterisations that had been slowly and tortuously developed, over 80+ preceding minutes. Which leads me back to the compromise question again.What I did like, though, was the interplay between Bob and the detective, with the detective using their common church-going familiarity to both try to extract information from Bob, and also to get his message across. There weren't enough such inspired ideas, though. I liked Matthias Schoenaerts controlled-scary performance, as legend-in- his-own-mind punk, Eric Deeds. John Ortiz' insidious quiet nagging, as the detective, is another supporting standout. Tom Hardy was just a tad too precious and calculated for me, although he may just have been the victim of too much low-key screen time. (In character motivations, I could make connections with Charles Bronson's similarly-implausible 'Mr. Majestyk') Not the best swansong for James Gandolfini, though - too much of Tony Soprano,albeit a latter-day tired and beaten-down Tony; I would have preferred him to go out on the movie-stealing high of 'Killing them Softly'. That film had all the mood and menace of this one, and then some. Tellingly, perhaps, it's adapted from a novel.
