Denzel Washington is a master of latency and reflection. Rami Malek has a chameleon presence that allows him to transform the mood of a scene through almost imperceptible changes, such as the posture of his jaw or a malicious smile. And Jared Leto excels at evoking the cartoonist side of the scary.
Taken separately, each actor has a way of elevating the work they are in. Bring them together and you better hope that the script can handle whatever they present.
“The Little Things”, John Lee Hancock’s thriller set in the 1990s, is not up to the task, although each man does his best, especially Washington, for whom the film represents a return to the known lawman’s territory . Although the roles that established Washington as one of the best actors of its generation are serious biographical pieces – “Glory”, “Malcolm X”, “The Hurricane” – it was his job as a police officer on 2001 “Training Day” that finally won him over the Oscar for Best Actor.
After that came important action roles like “Man on Fire” and “The Equalizer” that consolidated him as a main star. Washington’s recent focus has been on theater and screen-adapted plays, which makes this West Coast noir thriller something of a throwback to him.
While the other Oscar winners, Malek (“Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Mr. Robot”) and Leto (“Dallas Buyers Club”) share the screen with Washington, the story is constructed very simply for him and his unmatched ability to work out of hell silence and breaks. Still, his character Joe Deacon is a departure from other taciturn men that Washington has played, figures whose purposeful stillness serves as a safe that holds secrets and talents.
Deke, as he is known, is a man who hides from a past that is eating away at him in a Kern County sheriff’s uniform. From the moment he shows up, it is obvious that he is too good for the job, and soon we will have some background story from an old colleague of his in Los Angeles, where he was the big cheese in the local homicide squad.
Something went terribly wrong at that time, causing his career, marriage and health to implode in half a year. “A train crash during rush hour,” said one of his former partners as a warning to new hot sniper Jim Baxter (Rami Malek), who spots Deke while he is in town on a mission and invites him to consult on a case you’re working on. Jim knows Deke by reputation and thinks he can use his help in what appears to be a serial killer case.
As Deke is employed elsewhere, Jim is not afraid of losing his position in the department; besides, with all the warnings coming from Jim’s superiors and coworkers, it’s not like anyone is looking forward to having Deke back in the police.
Hancock (“The Blind Side”, “The Founder”) wrote and directed “The Little Things” and visually sets the tone of the 90s style in LA noir and the air of restlessness present in the films of well-known authors like Curtis Hanson and David Fincher. But this familiarity has its pros and cons.
Following a cautious dance back and forth, the two men follow a pace recognizable to devourers from the serial killer movie set of that time. And once Albert Sparma de Leto enters the story, the whole scene turns into something aggressively strange. Sparma is a blue collar with peculiar mannerisms that irritates Deke, transforming him from a silent track hunter fighting the desire to take a long-cooled box into a crumpled and haunted crusader.
Jim, supposedly more for the book than Deke and described as a holy roller, constantly surrenders to the gravitational pull of Deke’s obsession. Everyone makes decisions that don’t make much sense toward an outcome that you can struggle to worry about.
Following “The little things” requires a significant amount of patience and a broad interpretation of the term “slow burning”. Washington and Malek’s performances are initially robust enough to hold our attention, and as mentioned earlier, they are both skilled at acting like hell in whatever situation they were placed. But there comes a point where all your energetic efforts fail. make up for an average script. The stagnation of Leto’s secondary show does not help at all.
I have long refused films that take their titles from a supposedly definitive line that a character says. It seems strange, to begin with, and pulls us by the neck, taking us out of the flow of the narrative. Washington carries the title line with foreboding and melancholy as it is pronounced, and it still sounds banal. That is the nature of small annoyances, I think; a walk to the most beautiful view in the world can be ruined by a pebble in your boot.
Holding this film is something more significant, a flabby script written around a somewhat decent premise that some of the best actors currently working on can sell at times, but not as a whole. Hancock nailed the cast, and the soundtrack and small details are sure to bring Gen X filmmakers back to their zenith. But without that important and vital piece of structure in place, “The Little Things” is an unstable mystery that never quite comes together.
“The Little Things” is currently being broadcast on HBO Max.