Dog’s Movie House: “The Little Things” Doesn’t Take Said Little Things Into Account!

“The Little Things” features Denzel Washington as Joe Deacon, a former Los Angeles detective now working as a sheriff’s officer in Kern County. A case returns him to his old stomping grounds where he runs into a serial killer case that resembles the one that caused his fall from grace five years prior. Now considered a pariah, Deacon ends up teaming with hot shot detective Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) in an attempt to solve the case. Things get even more interesting when they find their prime suspect to be repair man Albert Sparma (Jared Leto in full crazy mode), a man whose smarter than he looks and has a habit of acting guilty as hell (even if he might not be) just because he enjoys it.

Hancock is a talented cat, but here I think he’s bitten off more than he could chew. There’s a difference between being inspired by classic thriller and simply aping them. There are scenes in “The Little Things” that literally go nowhere. The opening scene is right out of “Silence Of The Lambs” with a potential victim driving down a dark road singing to B-52’s “Roam” (very much like Catherine Martin singing along to Tom Petty’s “American Girl” in “Silence Of The Lambs.”) Only in this case, the would be victim escapes and is never heard from again. The ending bears more than a little resemblance to the finale in “Seven” only without any, you know, tension.

In between we have Denzel and Malek speaking in Hollywood cliche-speak. They talk and talk and, when they don’t have anything better to do. . .they, you guessed it, talk! In truth, the movie is fitfully entertaining because Malek and Washington are kick-ass actors who could read from a grocery list and make it sound like Shakespeare. But as envisioned by Hancock’s script, these two a murky, nebulous characters that are hard to get a thematic handle on. Deacon’s mysterious fall is not as engaging as it could be and it seems to be only a plot device for the film’s decidedly underwhelming finale.

There are some good things about the film, especially during the first half when it concentrates on the procedural portions of the story, There are some interesting plot beats that promise later revelations that never come to fruition. Leto is reliably entertaining as the greasy, long-haired Sparma and I find it interesting that the film is not terribly interested in whether or not Sparma is actually the killer. (A nod to another David Fincher classic, “Zodiac.”)

But then Malek’s character does a one-eighty and does one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen a movie cop do, all to evoke the same atmosphere of the finale of “Seven.” It also has the unfortunate side effect of pushing Denzel Washington to the rear of the film, cinematically speaking. The twist isn’t earned and the it makes the characters inconsistent. Overall, “The Little Things” is not a bad movie per se: it’s simply a disappointing effort considering the talent involved both in front of and behind the camera. Don’t waste your money at the theater and catch this on HBO Max instead. You won’t feel so cheated. 2 1/2 Out Of 5 On Kendog’s Barkometer! So Sayeth The Kendog!

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