The Little Things

Starring: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto, Chris Bauer, Michael Hyatt, Terry Kinney, Natalie Morales
Directed by: John Lee Hancock
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Thriller
2021

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A small town deputy sheriff (Denzel Washington) returns to Los Angeles and gets involved with an ambitious detective's (Rami Malek) attempts to track down a serial killer.

Review:

Tim: The Little Things was the first 2021 movie I saw and I had high hopes. It didn't quite live up to those expectations, but the cast is so good that it makes up for some of its flaws. I admit I'm probably being overly kind to this movie. It has some serious issues. In the end, I'll call it a good movie, but everyone involved was capable of so much more.

Let's start with the cast, since that's the film's greatest strength. It's a fairly impressive cast. Denzel Washington has long been one of my favorite actors (this is the 44th movie of his I've seen). This movie is firmly in his wheelhouse. He's played these kinds of characters many times and he's extremely good at it. He takes a role that was underdeveloped and a bit thinly written and brings out more humanity and complexity than you'd expect. He's just flat out an impressive actor and I marveled at his ability to elevate a role. This will never be considered one of his better performances, but it's better than it had any right to be. It was fun seeing him play this kind of role again. Rami Malek was a nice addition to the cast. I liked pairing a grizzled veteran like Washington with a new talent like Malek. He's still fairly fresh off his Academy Award win and he's undoubtedly an impressive talent. He's just odd enough that he contrasts well with Washington, who has honed his ability to connect with the audience. Malek keeps the audience a bit at length, which worked well in pairing him with Washington. It was fun seeing these two big talents working together. The cast is rounded out by Jared Leto, who gives an unexpected and memorable performance. I'm probably less of a Leto fan than the average movie watcher, but I certainly respect his talent. I'm still not entirely sure what to make of his performance here, and I mean that as a compliment. It's off-putting, strange, and unique. He certainly plays a character unlike many that we've seen on the screen. Leto is critical to this film. You have Washington doing his thing, Malek who has talent but is inexperienced in films like this. You needed Leto here to do something big, something out of the ordinary. He's the one I think about the most as I reflect on this film. It's perhaps the best performance of the film and the one that sticks with you. I might not love Leto, but I was quite impressed with his work here. The rest of the cast felt like they had very minor roles. So much time and energy is spent focused on Washington, Malek, and Leto, and I don't blame that. This is the best part of the movie- seeing these three men interacting together on screen. It's so good, in fact, that I was able to forgive the movie of some of its many flaws.

There's no doubt that the story is weak. Director John Lee Hancock wrote the script, so it's definitely on him. I know a lot of people disliked the story and at least some of them disliked it because it was so unconventional. The film doesn't follow the normal path and I imagine that was unsatisfying to a number of people. I actually didn't have as many issues with this. It's certainly not the movie I was expecting, but I was game to ride along and see where Hancock was taking us. The story deserves some credit for subverting our expectations, for not being the story we wanted it to be. You can't claim to have seen this move before, as it certainly plays with some of our expectations. The problem is that Hancock's experiment doesn't quite work. He tells a different story, but that doesn't mean it's an especially good one. The whole idea of "the little things" was great and it seemed like it would result in a payoff at the end, but it's surprisingly lackluster. No spoilers, but there's a big moment at the end meant to surprise and potentially shock the audience. It was certainly a unique moment and I experienced the initial rush of, "Oh wow, that's a bold and cool move!" and then, very quickly, the gaps in logic starting to appear. My wife uttered a reaction that pretty much spoiled the ending. If you spend any time thinking about it, it just doesn't make sense. It's a temporary fix, which is ultimately pointless. That leaves a bad taste in the audience's mouth. You start to wonder if the whole thing was worth it. It's over 2 hours long, we needed a more satisfactory conclusion. Unfortunately, that wasn't in the cards.

So, for people who dislike or want to complain about The Little Things, I get it. I experienced many of those same emotions. I wanted to like the movie way more than I actually did. And yet, I couldn't bring myself to go very negative about the film. I got to see Washington, Malek, and Leto working together, which was terrific. I got to see an unexpected, odd movie that didn't quite work, but had more ambition than your average serial killer movie. I wouldn't call Hancock's film a resounding success, but I enjoyed the movie more than I didn't.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



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