Review: The Little Things

Set in the 1990s, Denzel Washington plays a paunchy small-town deputy and former big city homicide detective who runs an evidence-delivery errand to his old stomping grounds. Washington has always been a keen observer, particularly picking up on the ‘little things’, but years ago his maverick tendencies lead to some kind of dark tragedy. A tragedy that has him now greeted with mixed reaction among his former colleagues when he shows up. He meets a young hotshot homicide detective (played by Rami Malek) working on a serial killer case, one that Washington feels is rather familiar to him from his own time in homicide. He starts to find excuses to hang around after delivering the evidence, and before long he’s assisting Malek on the case. Malek for his part starts to find himself obsessed with finding the killer, eventually settling on a creepy prime suspect who has a ‘passion’ for police work and serial killer cases. Played by Jared Leto, the outwardly trolling/goading man seems to be the poster child for obvious serial killers – hollow-eyed, stringy-haired, morbid etc. Does that mean he’s their perp, though? Or is there some kind of sick mind-fuck game going on? Is he just morbidly flattered to be considered a suspect? All three? Meanwhile, what exactly went down several years ago with Washington and that other case? You’ll have to watch the film.

 

Is there anything more frustrating in cinema than a near-miss? This 2021 killer flick from writer-director John Lee Hancock (the excellent “Saving Mr. Banks”, the solid “The Founder”) is most frustrating indeed. It was actually written a long time ago, Hancock wrote it in 1993 after working with Clint Eastwood on “A Perfect World”, another frustrating near-miss that contained one of Kevin Costner’s best-ever performances. Apparently at one point Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, and Danny DeVito had all shown interest in directing it (with Eastwood and DeVito also considering acting in it at some point, as had George Clooney among others), but here we are all these years later and Hancock has helmed it himself and with Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto doing the acting. I admire Hancock’s dedication and persistence, but the film it has resulted in here has just one too many flaws for me to come around to recommending it.

 

Funnily enough I tend to have the reverse feelings about it to most people, I think the second half is much stronger than the slow-paced first half. I really took a while to become interested here, and that’s the chief reason for my mild grading on it. The other big reason comes in the form of a horribly mannered, distracting performance by a miscast Rami Malek. I’m yet to warm to Mr. Malek as an actor, I thought he was horribly unconvincing as Freddie Mercury in the dreadful “Bohemian Rhapsody” and he’s borderline insufferable here. For some reason, he seems to be trying to suck his teeth at every opportunity here (he clearly didn’t need the exaggerated prosthetics in “Bohemian Rhapsody” given his obvious overbite. I have one, too). The man apparently has no idea of subtlety, I can’t bring myself to watch the remake of “Papillon” – Dustin Hoffman was mannered enough in the original, I can only imagine how hammy Malek plays the part there. Malek’s bug-eyed, teeth-sucking, alien-like performance here comes across like it’s his first day trying to be a human being. In my notes while watching, I wrote that it’s like Willem Dafoe in “Shadow of the Vampire” is playing Willem Dafoe in “Mississippi Burning”, but with the fangs still in. Watch the film and tell me I’m wrong. At any rate, the issue is that you find yourself so suspicious of Malek when there’s absolutely no screenplay reason to be, so it’s just awful acting from one of the worst Best Actor award-winners in recent memory.

 

Thankfully, the rest of the cast manage to pull their weight, especially Denzel Washington and Jared Leto. This is one of Denzel’s best latter-day turns, he’s an excellent actor when he wants to be (Yet his turn in “Training Day” was once again one of the worst Oscar-winning turns in recent-ish memory). He’s one of those actors who, despite being capable of excellence (In the likes of “Glory”, “Malcolm X”, “Philadelphia”, “The Hurricane”, “Flight” etc.) often seems content on ‘star’ turns that rely more on his charisma and familiar persona rather than genuine acting. So I was glad he turned up wearing his working boots here, and modulates his performance much better than in say “Training Day” or the dull “Fences”. Jared Leto isn’t remotely my favourite actor, but he’s well-cast here looking evil as hell as a convincing prime suspect – whether he’s actually guilty or not. There’s a little Jeffrey Combs crossed with Charles Manson to him here, and Leto steals his every scene as a shit-stirring scumbag. I actually think it’s his best performance to date, having not been terribly fussed with his showy work in “Dallas Buyers Club”. I also want to point out the nice, creepy, low-key lighting by cinematographer John Schwartzman (“The Rock”, “Saving Mr. Banks”) which gives the film a bit of a dark and unsettling mood, but not in a showy way.

 

I said that I prefer the film’s second half to its first half, and I certainly do. Once it really gets going it’s quite compelling, even though we’re spending some stretches with Malek on screen more often than Denzel, the story by then has become more interesting. However, in addition to being a bit silly at times, I wouldn’t blame people for seeing one too many parallels to a certain serial killer film from the 90s in the second half here. That said, the similarities are so strong that I wonder if they were written post-1993 by Hancock deliberately giving off those vibes for a certain purpose. Given that the conclusion arrives at a slightly skewed riff on that excellent 90s film, I’m assuming it was a deliberate attempt at throwing audiences off just a touch or simply skewing things slightly in an interesting way. And hey, if you’re gonna take inspiration, why not take it from the best?

 

A mixed bag killer thriller doesn’t quite come off, due to one miscalculated performance from Rami Malik and a slow first half. Still, there’s some stuff here to very much like, especially the top performances by Denzel Washington and Jared Leto. I hate near-misses, I’m telling you. Hate them.

 

Rating: C+