“It’s the little things that are important, Jimmy. It’s the little things that get you caught.” That’s the slugline of John Lee Hancock’s newest crime noir ( I don’t know what we call cop dramas set solely in the 90s because cell phones weren’t a thing), The Little Things, starring Denzel Washington, Jared Leto and Rami Malek. Washington plays Joe Deacon, a recently retired detective from Los Angeles, torn apart by the stress of the job with a still lingering curiosity about an old case he couldn’t solve. He’s moved on to a retirement gig out in some rural California town, only to find his way back to his old squad where he’s faced with a new version of himself, media availability hound Jim Baxter (Malek). Deacon fritters around the squad’s investigation of a new string of potentially serial murders, inserting himself into that investigation taking Malek under his wing as they navigate a new string of murders in the city.
There’s some other stuff going on; Deacon has a dark past he doesn’t talk about. They bring in a suspected pedofile, who then kills himself. It’s all a dance until they find the main reason anyone should see this movie, Jared Leto, who lends his unnerving, STILL (he’s fucking 49) boyish charm to Albert Sparma, a weirdo who becomes the subject of the investigation. It really bothers me that people who create can’t see how often what they produce is a trite amalgamation of everything they’ve absorbed over their lifetime in art. The Little Things is just that first line at the top, a movie where the title is said in that manner by Deacon who was married, with two older daughters and an ex-wife to Baxter, who guess what, has a really nice young wife and two young daughters. I’m familiar enough with the director/writer Hancock’s work and a review of his catalog reveals a cadre of mostly schlocky, middle of the road autobiographical films. Hancock doesn’t seem to care about the actual content of this movie, just the opportunity to show his appreciation for the genre and the story. I can’t say I fault that, his other films including The Blind Side, Savings Mr. Banks, The Rookie focus more on telling those stories rather than producing genuinely interesting and original filmmaking. Some stories are interesting enough to write a movie about them, but the screenwriter has to possess the big picture approach to fill the story with substance.
This story initially gave me a True Detective vibe, obviously smaller in scope being a film as Deacon’s re-invigorated self inserts himself into the LAPD’s investigation, believing that the killer in his case he couldn’t solve, that destroyed his life may be back at it. I understand the draw of the story in that sense; a detective so wrapped up in a case it becomes more about the introspective examination of himself as he deals with the duress of life and death in the case. The execution in this film just didn’t pan out the way it initially appeared. Instead of really diving into Deacon’s meltdown that caused his retirement or portending Baxter’s potential for a ruined life, the characters dance around the real questions about their own lives and unfortunately, I don’t think any real risks were taken until the end and even then, the ending is just confusing. We come to learn a dark secret about Deacon and how he channeled shades of Alonzo Harris, Washington’s character from Training Day, revealing himself more incompetent than some comitted stalwart, married to helping people. Deacon advises Baxter throughout the film on “the little things” and devotion to victims, but nonchalantly seems to ignore his own advice or really the lessons he purported to have learned at the crest of the story. He drags Baxter into it and maybe it’s an attempt to show the “all of this has happened before and it will happen again” theme that I do appreciate, but I suspect as with many other aspects of this film, it’s more banal material cobbled together from the past decade of detective drama meant to show the viewer the flawed human condition with minimal homework done in the story and dialogue to get us there.
Jared Leto does profile like one of the fascinating characters we’ve become accustomed to as detective shows in the 2010s moved away from I call the NYPD Blue era of gritty procedural cop drama to where we are now with productions like True Detective, Mindhunter and many others, with The Shield as maybe the bridge between the 90s and the 2010s. Leto is the best written character in the story, fraught with creepiness, seemingly elevated intelligence or at least very careful inflection when he speaks, oozing with unpredictability. He, only a suspect because of a still convoluted theory Deacon thought of related to a victim’s refrigerator, foils the investigators by studying them during each interaction, though he fits the profile of their killer. Sparma studies the murders, cataloging material that to anyone in the 2010s appears like normal web sleuthing and those people definitely aren’t super weird. His study of the murders and interpersonal intelligence leads him to coyly play with Baxter and Deacon, preying on Baxter’s public profile and stepfordy home life and Deacon’s clearly damaged soul from his own past. The penultimate scene where Baxter gets in the car with Sparma so Sparma can give him a key piece of evidence did haunt me and from that sequence to the end, the movie does cook. Leto does a masterful job with this character by almost acting as a conscience to Baxter and Deacon, in the car ride, forcing Baxter to question his life and decisions, especially as they arrive at their destination. The ensuing events, which I’ll keep to myself, become muddled, but the build up, the setting and the filmmaking in these scenes really had the edge that I was looking for throughout the rest of the film. I will say, Sparma really doesn’t bring anything new as a character; he’s a trope of the qualities of a main suspect, who probes detectives to be introspective with surprisingly intelligence isn’t remotely new, however as we’ve learned over the past decade with the explosion of true-crime stories, we can’t help but be fascinated with these kinds of people and Leto delivers us yet another memorable serial killer suspect character.
I’m still disappointed by how this movie relied so much on cliches of detective dramas past because the story itself was there. We as a viewing audience, clearly aren’t going anywhere when it comes to these kinds of stories, but as the market saturates with them, it becomes more difficult for writers not to fall too deep into the framework. Once the story is there, it’s so difficult to dig your way out to something original and memorable. It’s likely why most of these types of stories (and just about every other type) have moved to streaming and television. Stories like this need to breathe for hours as television allows and again, I believe this story had legs, it probably just should have been a series. It’s unfortunate that it’s so difficult to make these types of movies now, but we’ve been spoiled by television and demand a higher level of creativity and depth when it comes to detective stories. In the end, the story delivered us yet another sinisterly fascinating character to add to the catalog and not a lot else. I’m still unclear why Washington seems fine with taking low risk roles like this when he blazed so many trails earlier in his career with iconic portrayals. He seems to settle with his roles at times, though as I say that he’s starring in an upcoming Macbeth adaptation which sounds delightful, but I really don’t know why he made this movie after reading the script. Either way, he’s given plenty to us on screen so can’t really judge and who knows, maybe this film kindles him to finally make the jump to a series where his brilliance in a role like this could really radiate.
Bo's Gamut 