The Little Things
It didn’t surprise me at all to read that John Lee Hancock has had this script written since the early 1990s- it very much feels like a thriller from that time. What surprises me is that it didn’t get made after “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Se7en” brought fresh life to the serial killer thriller. But honestly, the fact that we are getting it in 2021 makes it feel like a welcome throwback to that era of thriller; if it had come out in the ’90s, it might have gotten lost in the deluge at the time.
The film begins in 1990. A young woman is driving on the road when she gets the feeling that another car is harassing her; it pulls up next to her, but we cannot see the driver’s face. She tries to get away and get someone else involved, but the gas station she pulls up to appears to be closed, and she has to flag down a semi from the road. After that cold opening, we cut to Joe Deacon (Denzel Washington), who is on the scene of a murder. He is a Kern County Sheriff’s deputy, and he has to go to Los Angeles to pick up evidence for a court date the next day. While he’s there, he gets roped into the murder of a young woman that seems somewhat similar to a case he was a part of a few years earlier, which resulted in suspicion about what happened, and his part in it. He has a sharp mind, something Sergeant Jimmy Baxter (Rami Malek) recognizes, so he invites Joe to help.
Another thing that “The Little Things” has going for it being made now as opposed to the ’90s is having an older Denzel in the role of Deacon, and one 20 years removed from his Oscar-winning role as an ethically questionable cop in “Training Day.” I’m not going to say this is great work by Washington, but he brings a gravity and certainty to the role even if we don’t feel like we can be certain of his motivations ourselves. Malek is an interesting choice for Baxter- who’s put himself in the spotlight with this case- but he and Washington are a strong pairing. And they both do well opposite Jared Leto as Albert Sparma, who is a key suspect in the case. Steven Spielberg was originally attached to direct, but left because it was too dark (which I can see, pre-“Schindler’s List”), and Clint Eastwood was also attached at a time, having also directed Hancock’s screenplays for “A Perfect World” and “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” I’m curious who Eastwood would have cast in the roles (although it likely would have been him in the role of Deacon), but Hancock has made some good choices in his castings. “The Blind Side” director hasn’t made anything quite like this as a director, and he does a decent job with it. I think he definitely studied Eastwood and the way he approached drama and thrillers, because his work here feels very much like “A Perfect World”- this isn’t a fast-paced film but something methodical, procedural and centers around the characters and the story over thrills. This is old-fashioned craftsmanship at work from Hancock, and helping him along the way is cinematography by John Schwartzman and music by Thomas Newman, who keep the tension up, even when the action slows down.
The ending of the film is effectively ambiguous. Admittedly, it had me thinking of “Se7en,” but this is actually a darker one, just not as blunt force in its approach. I can see it being a make-or-break part of the film for people while watching it, because it asks us to question the motivations of the characters we’ve followed throughout the film. This is where Hancock’s more methodical approach comes in handy, because as we see the truth come out, we are left not with quick revelations, but time to ponder what they mean. That’s important when you start to think about the little things.
