‘There are three reasons to see ‘The Drop’ They are…Tom Hardy… Tom Hardy..Tom Hardy. He’s in practically every scene and is absolutely awesome. For those of you that may not be familiar with his name, he played the evil masked villian, Hugo Strange in ‘The Dark Knight’.
In ‘The Drop’ is a gripping crime thriller, as well as a profoundly interesting character study. Hardy plays Bob Saginowski, a bartender who lives and works in a low income section of Brooklyn. The bar was once owned by his cousin Marvin (the excellent James Gandolfini, in his last film role) but has been taken over by the Chechen mob, who use it as ‘drop’ a place to launder their dirty money.
Bob spends his days tending bar, sweeping up and staying out of the way of his super nasty crime bosses.But it doesn’t take long before his mundane, dull life changes.
One night the bar is robbed. Even though only $5000 was stolen, Bob and Marv realize that they could be in for an even bigger heist what with Super Bowl Sunday coming up.
But this isn’t the only event, that disrupts Bob’s quiet life. One night walking home, he hears the cries of a dog coming from a garbage can. He opens the lid and pulls out a badly beaten pit bull puppy, that even with his wounds, is so adorable, it would warm even the coldest of hearts. Despite trying not to, Bob falls instantly in love with the little guy and names him Rocco.immediately in love with the little guy and names him Rocco. I should mention there’s a girl involved with this puppy. Her name is Nadia and the dog belonged to her. She also had a very abusive, ex-con boyfriend, Eric Deeds (the wonderful menacing Matthias Schoenaerts) who hurt them both.
She teaches Bob everything he needs to know in order to be a good ‘dog daddy’ and soon the two of them are living in perfect harmony.
There are a couple of problems Bob needs to deal with…One is Deeds demands for $10,000 or something tragic will happen to Rocco as maybe even Nadia. If that’s not stressful enough, Super Bowl Day is fast approaching and there’s a good chance the bar will be revisited by the thieves.
To say anymore would give away some very important twists…the most interesting having to do with Bob’s complex character, which Hardy captures brilliantly.
The film directed by Michael R. Roskam was written by Dennis Lehane (‘Mystic River’ ‘Gone Baby Gone’ ‘Shutter Island’) from his short story entitled ‘Animal Rescue’ is definitely a film you don’t want to miss.
‘The Drop’ opens Friday, September 12, 2014 and I gave it 4 bagels out of 4. I gave Thomas Hardy 5 bagels out of 5.
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