THE DROP (2014)

Writer Dennis Lehane (MYSTIC RIVER; GONE BABY GONE) takes his literary kit from Boston to Brooklyn for director Michaël R. Roskam’s Stateside debut in this minor mob morality tale.  And why not?, since everything else in here also on loan-out: plot, characters, accents, story beats, over-stuffed interiors.  Not that the movie’s bad, it’s not, but Roskam’s lack of familiarity with the terrain blindsides him in ways that undercut verisimilitude.  Those dese-dem-dose accents laid on thick as impasto.  (Sure, it’s a period piece, but not 1930.)  Particularly by lead Tom Hardy, one of those still-waters-run-deep types and sounding weirdly like Adam Sandler.  (And the Belgium-born Roskam without the ear to notice.)  Hardy’s Number Two guy behind the bar at James Gandolfini’s neighborhood joint.  A very Boston kind of working-man’s dive in Brooklyn (bet they serve Boston-style bar pizza) that Gandolfini lost years ago to the Chechen mob.  (Ah, that’s why we’re in Brooklyn.)  The Chechens use it as an occasional ‘drop’ for thousands in illegal cash.  Too much of a temptation for Gandolfini who’s plotting a scam with a pair of lowlife crooks.  And if you can’t guess where this is going, you’re too young to watch the film.  Meantime, Hardy meets-cute with Noomi Rapace while rescuing a pup out of a garbage can.  She’s an animal shelter volunteer, and the guy who beat up the pup and stuffed him in the can is not only her ‘Ex,’ but also one of Gandolfini’s partners in his Chechen robbery scheme.  Credit Roskam for getting these coincidences to play with a sense of inevitability, helped by crepuscular lighting at all times, inside & out, and with a neat-as-a-pin supporting turn by a smart Puerto Rican Detective (John Ortiz) who figures out the score, but knows what to let pass.  Probably the best way to enjoy the film, too.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Were Gandolfini & Hardy purposefully designed to play like some minor-league ON THE WATERFRONT Brando & Steiger?

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Sadly, Gandolfini, who looks like he’s about to keel over any minute, did just that two months after shooting wrapped.  Dying at only 51.