The Little Things (2021)

Starring: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto
Grade: C+

The scariest thought one faces in life is doing something and realizing it can never be undone. It may not be the most original cop movie, but this harrowing thought being a constant presence over this screenplay’s head defines The Little Things as an example of why the reality of being a detective or law enforcement official is not what the movies make it out to be.

Summary

In October 1990, a teenage girl is driving by herself at night. A car drives right up behind her, next to her, and then past her. For some reason, the car stops a little further down the road, so she drives past it quickly, as she’s still a little bit shaken up. She goes to a gas station to ask someone for help, but it’s closed. The man in the car pulls up and stalks her on the premises, so she runs out to the street and flags down an incoming trucker.

Sometime after, Deputy Sheriff Joe Deacon (Washington) is investigating a broken light-up sign for a restaurant with the owner. He’s annoyed because this is the third time in two months it has happened to him, but Deacon doesn’t really care. Upon getting back to the department, Deacon’s superior () lets him know that JJ Kendricks, a guy who robbed a Quick Mart, was identified by a witness but she’s getting the “guilts”. All she knows for certain is that he was wearing boots, and they were referred to by her as “unforgettable”. Kendricks is a suspect in a robbery in Los Angeles. There is a preliminary hearing for a motion to dismiss tomorrow morning, so he wants Deacon to drive to LA to bring back the bloodstained boots so the witness can identify them. With this, the judge will set a trial date. They ran the ABO on the blood and everything checks out. Deacon argues this is a DA problem not theirs, but it is their problem because they don’t have evidence, meaning there is no conviction. Plus, he has no one else, so it’s all up to Deacon, who is visibly uncomfortable with the assignment. Even so, Deacon drives up to the Los Angeles County Sheriff Forensics Unit to pick up the seized evidence. He gives the worker there a paper with the details, so she goes and looks for it. As she does that, he notices more evidence in different bags on her table and uses his pen to try and discreetly look inside. She catches him and then tells him that the evidence is there, but it’s not leaving without a signature, though it can’t be his signature. She has to have authorization from homicide to release it and isn’t interested in the fact that the preliminary hearing is tomorrow. Captain Carl Farris (Terry Kinney) put a lock on it to be re-tested, so Deacon exits.

Upon getting to the parking lot, Deacon sees his car being towed on the orders of Jimmy Baxter (Malek) because he was blocking Jimmy’s car. When Deacon wonders why he didn’t just ask him to move it, Jimmy insists he doesn’t have the time and to head to Kern County if he wants special treatment. Instead of escalating the situation, Deacon just has the tow truck guy unhook his car.

Deacon goes in to see Farris and observes Jimmy in another room answering questions from the media on some case. Deacon comments on Jimmy being Farris’s new “disciple” jokingly, but Farris swears by Jimmy and his detective work. Even so, he’s not too pleased in seeing Deacon and tells him that he called his CO, and Deacon is to wait overnight until the tests are complete. Then, he can deliver the evidence tomorrow. Farris sarcastically suggests it will give him time to visit the friends he left behind. As soon as he exits Farris’s office, Sgt. Rodgers (Joris Jarsky) talks some trash to him before being interrupted by his phone. After being greeted by a journalist friend at the office, Deacon sits in for a moment at Jimmy’s press conference, and they share eye contact. The journalist mentions during the Q&A that after two months and four victims, they don’t have a suspect. Jimmy confirms this, and Deacon walks out the door. They continue their eye contact as he walks. In Farris’s office, Farris stresses to Jimmy that they are under a lot of public scrutiny. It’s been the most they’ve dealt with since “The Night Stalker”. The sheriff hinted they may have to look to the feds for help, which Jimmy isn’t too happy about, though nothing is officially confirmed about the feds being brought in. That night, Deacon runs into old friend and colleague Det. Sal Rizoli (Chris Bauer) who offers to buy him a coffee. As they walk to a nearby diner, Jimmy asks a co-worker who Deacon is, and the guy confirms it’s Joe Deacon, which puts everything in perspective for Jimmy. Still pissed off from earlier, Jimmy shows up at the diner to throw passive aggressive comments and subtle jabs at him, so Deacon throws it right back before Jimmy leaves because his co-worker knocks on the window to get his attention. After Jimmy exits, Sal gives Jimmy credit for being a good cop. Jimmy reenters and calls Sal to help them, so he cuts the conversation short. He offers to have Deacon stay at his place with his wife, but Deacon respectfully declines.

Jimmy then asks Deacon to ride along with him because he might be able to give him a few pointers, so he comes with. They get to the scene, and Jimmy is told the power is out. As a response, he has a team go in to sweep the place while they wait outside, though it may have been just for Jimmy to make another snide comment to Deacon. Later that night, Jimmy leads the detectives in with Deacon, and they go through a family’s apartment to climb over to the room in question. Once they get there, Jimmy uses a blacklight to look carefully through the room until he sees the victim. Just then, the power comes on along with the radio and freaks the hell out of everyone momentarily. Jimmy knows the victim was killed at a certain spot in the room, but he wonders aloud why the body was still moved to its current position. Deacon asks Sal if there were any prints on the window, so Sal asks Jimmy if they dusted it yet. Jimmy asks for the first officer, so Flo Dunigan (Michael Hyatt) goes to call him. Deacon greets her and she’s happy to see him, telling him to wait up for her. Sal tells Deacon the victim is Julie Brock from Manhattan, Kansas. The first officer enters through the window like them, and Jimmy reams him in front of everyone since the killer exited the same place they entered and it’s his responsibility to secure and protect the premises from anyone who might spoil it. After telling the guy to leave, Jimmy goes over to Sal and makes yet another comment asking when Deacon is going to break the case for him, which Sal laughs off. Jimmy and Flo discuss certain details before Flo takes the bag off the victim’s head, prompting Jimmy to look to the side. In the meantime, Deacon is looking out the window at the opposite building trying to connect the dots. He decides to go across the street and go inside the building to find the room staring across from the crime scene in the apartment. Jimmy can see Deacon’s flashlight from where he’s standing. Deacon sees one lone chair on the ground, so he places it up normally and sits down.

Doing this, he has a perfect view into the victim’s apartment and can see the body. It gives him flashbacks to when he was younger and saw two murdered naked females much like this one. Afterwards, Jimmy tells Detective Jamie Estrada (Natalie Morales) to get everything she can on Julie and known associates and the like. Once she asks if they got anything across the alley, Deacon listens in. Unfortunately, there isn’t much, but he gives her the order to lean on the lab for prints. Jimmy is bothered by Deacon’s quietness during this conversation, but he just asked if any of the other girls had any bites. When Jamie mentions Carrie Holland, Deacon says it’s similar to a case up north. Jimmy drops Deacon off at the station and tells him to buy him breakfast. When Deacon declines, Jimmy says he’ll buy and wants him at Nick’s at 8AM. He agrees to if he’s still in town at that time. Deacon goes to a diner that night. Elsewhere, a man and woman are jogging together. Once they depart to go home, an unknown car follows the woman. The next morning, Jimmy enters the restaurant and sees a sign on a window that the woman is missing. Deacon is already there and on the phone with his CO. Apparently, the witness made a second-degree offer and Kendricks copped a plea. They don’t need the boots. Once he hangs up, Jimmy says he knew it was Deacon who spotted the observatory across the street last night and admits they probably would have missed it if he wasn’t there. He asks Deacon when he’s leaving but is disappointed to hear that it’s right then and there. He mentions a guy named Stan Peters (Frederick Koehler) who has been picked up twice for peeping in the victim’s neighborhood. He was picked up that morning on a Ramey warrant, so Jimmy invites Deacon to stay for the interrogation and he does.

At the station, Jimmy sits down with an emotional Stan who is waiting on his lawyer. Deacon stands outside and watches from the other side of the window. Jimmy slides over two pictures of a young woman from his neighborhood who is now dead. One is of her graduation and the other is her after she was killed. He outs him as a known sex offender, but Stan insists he was taking a piss in the alley and this teenage girl walked by, swearing he had nothing to do with this. Just then, Deacon picks up the phone that is connected to the inside, so Jimmy answers it. After hanging up following a quick and unknown statement from Deacon, Jimmy asks Stan what he can tell him about Mary Roberts. Stan gets even more emotional and goes over to try and look through the window at who asked the question. Following this, Deacon and Jimmy leave and Deacon admits he knew the guy, which is why he was intrigued. He also broke his jaw once. Harris walks up to them and asks what Deacon is still doing there, so Deacon leaves. Jimmy goes inside to ask for details on Mary Roberts, and Jaime mentions the Rathbun family is waiting. They think their daughter Rhonda is gone, but Jimmy tells her it’s still missing persons unless they can produce a corpse. While on the highway, Deacon drives by some young girls and smiles. Next, he loves over and sees a huge cross planted on top of a mountain, so he decides to take a detour to go see Flo. She’s in the middle of looking at a corpse once he shows up. He asked to her look at this body specifically because it’s apparently similar to a case he’s working up north. Flo deduces the killer murdered her and made a return trip. That is when he moved the body. Deacon agrees to buy lunch if Flo pulls up an old file for him, so she agrees. However, it’s not a case up north like he said. It’s something entirely different and now she’s angry. She is adamant in saying she won’t be there this time if anything goes wrong, something he agrees to. As she goes to find it, he looks over the victim and talks to her, saddened by what has led her here.

Deacon and Flo have lunch, and Flo can see something is wrong in Deacon’s eyes. She gives him a keychain to remind him of what they did years ago. That night, Deacon goes to the victim’s apartment. He opens the fridge, and the landlady follows soon after because she thought the cops were done looking at the place. He asks how long the fridge has been broken, and it’s been about a week. She called ABC, but the guy hasn’t shown up since the news of the murder. The food was already rotten, but the milk was drunk by her kid. He asks for the beers because he wants it for evidence, so she goes and gets it. He sits down and gets flashbacks to his old case. In it, Harris stands in horror, and Sal walks over to them. He wakes up from the flashback to the landlady giving him the beers. She questions how he is able to get use to the smell of the crime scene, but he responds, “If you’re lucky, you don’t get used to it”. Deacon goes to a cheap motel riddled with hookers outside and gets a room. It looks as though he’s going to stay a bit longer to solve this case. That night, Jimmy tucks in his two young daughters Chloe and Jennifer. His wife Ana (Isabel Arraiza) asks if he set his alarm, and he confirms, though it comes off as awkward and Ana looks worried about him. Back at the motel, Deacon has all the victims’ pictures taped to the wall and lays in the dark with his flashlight, thinking more about the details of the case. He even imagines all the victims physically in the room with him. The next day, Harris brings Jimmy into his office to tell him Stan Peters killed himself last night. He asks what this has to do with Kern County, so Jimmy admits Deacon was listening in and it was sort of an interagency cooperation since he’s working a similar case up north. Harris reveals that Deacon hasn’t worked a murder case since they ran him off five years ago.

Though Jimmy knows some details about Deacon like how he was a good detective that had a heart attack, so he was moved to a smaller job, Harris corrects him. Deacon worked a case so hard, he got a suspension, a divorce, and a triple bypass all in six months. He had a complete meltdown, a “rush-hour trainwreck”. In a way, Jimmy is the one who got his spot.

His advice to Jimmy is to not get mixed up with him. Jimmy doesn’t understand what the big deal is, but Harris points out that Deacon’s CO said he’s taking vacation days. Knowing Deacon as well as he does, Harris implies Deacon did this to work his own case. Meanwhile, Deacon picks up some clothes from a thrift store, and he goes to ABC Appliance. He gets the employee list and the repair appointment book from the worker there. He goes into another appliance store and asks for the same, seeing that one appointment was crossed off the list because they were too busy. He gets manager Jack Aboud’s name, takes the list, and heads to the door. He sees the back of one of Jack’s employees from the break room but decides against going back there before leaving. The employee is Albert Sparma (Leto), and he turns to watch Deacon leave. Back at the ID lab, Jimmy asks the tech guy if he looked at the print from the Brock apartment. He has, but it means nothing if he doesn’t have anything to compare it to. Plus, the center is missing, and the computer can’t work without the center. The bright side is that the guy left a partial. Jimmy storms out. Eventually, he comes face to face with another missing persons sign on a board for Ronda Rathburn. He goes to the Rathburn home and watches home videos of her, asking if there is anything left that he could use for information. The mother tells him that she always used to wear a red barrette to pull her hair back when she ran. Jimmy insists he will find her. Even in his car, he takes a look at a picture of Ronda to internalize it before he’s interrupted by his beeper going off. There is another victim. This time the body was fished out of the river. Upon investigating the body, he deduces it’s not Ronda but someone else. Deacon is at the crime scene too, confirming Farris’s suspicions. They discuss the details of the murder and that it fits the killer’s MO.

Changing the subject, Jimmy wants to know about his connection with Mary Roberts, considering Stan Peters killed himself over it. Before Deacon can say anything, Sal calls Jimmy over to look at something. Later, Jimmy approaches Deacon again. Deacon knows Jimmy went to bat for him since Sal told him, but he admits it’s not a wise career move for him. Jimmy is aware, mentioning how Deacon isn’t a “department favorite”. To make it up to him, Deacon gives him a list of names from the stores he went to because they were in Julie Brock’s neighborhood, though it could be a long shot. Jimmy thanks him, but he asks how a guy with the best clearance rate in the department works 15 years without a promotion. Deacon just chalks it up to, “Maybe I didn’t go to the right church”. After a discussion on religion where Deacon admits to believing in God but the horrors of what he’s seen makes him lose faith, Jimmy brings up how he owes him a breakfast. The next morning, Deacon is welcomed to Jimmy’s house, and Ana cooks for them. She tries to make small talk with Deacon but after asking questions where he has to admit that he’s divorced with two grown daughters and just a deputy, it gets a bit awkward. It’s not necessarily contentious because they are both nice to each other, but it’s slightly uncomfortable. Jimmy’s daughters greet them, and one even kisses Deacon goodbye before they go to school. Once they leave, Jimmy says he’s going to take a look at the names, and they can meet after his shift to compare notes. Deacon brings up Farris probably having to be notified, but Jimmy doesn’t think he has to because it’s his case. Sometime after, Deacon goes to ex-wife Marsha’s (Judith Scott) place for a surprise visit. She’s on her way out the door for work, but she greets him. Not much is said between them as Deacon isn’t great at handling these more emotional things in his life, so the conversation is cut short, and they both say goodbye.

At the station, Jamie gives Jimmy files on Mary Roberts, Paige Callahan, and Tamara Ewing. Though Jimmy only asked for Roberts, Jamie points out that they were all hookers, they were drugged and stabbed to death on the same night and in the same location. Jimmy meets with Deacon at a bar. They discuss where they’re from, with Jimmy being from the Valley and Deacon being from Birmingham, Alabama. Next, they get down to the details. They have six victims. One is Julie Brock, three are from north county dumped over here, and two are from here dumped in north county. All were knifed, gagged, and bound. They were organized killings. They discuss other details like how he might have two cars, the extreme torture, and the biting might be just him being turned on. Basically, he kills for sexual pleasure. Jimmy asks if Stan Peters was their boy, but Deacon hopes not. Going back to whoever the killer might be, Deacon points out how the guy must have some serious balls. He went back to Julie a few days after he killed her, moves her body, shaves her legs, poses her, and brings beer and other groceries. They also found partially digested meat in her stomach, though she was a strict vegan according to Jimmy. Ana is the same way. Deacon presumes the killer probably forced her to eat the meat at knifepoint. Lastly, Jimmy asks why Deacon is trying to solve a five-year-old case that everyone else has forgotten about. So, Deacon drives Jimmy over to where the moment happened, the source of his flashbacks. Back in the day, Deacon and Farris were partners, and they got a call over the radio when they were only a couple of miles away. Screams were reported and Sal was the first one on the scene. There were no lights because of a switching problem, an issue that happened once every decade or so. He points out a woman that lives near who is currently standing by her window watching them, Gladys Fulcher.

She’s the eyes and ears to the neighborhood. She said she was out at first but came clean later. She went on her first date in 15 years and slept at the guy’s house. So, they didn’t have anyone else seeing the action.

They go under the bridge, and Deacon continues to reveal the rest of the story. There was a drought, meaning there was no water, mud, or prints. The victims were dragged to a big rock. They were drugged elsewhere, but they were brought there to be stabbed to death and posed to face each other. Additionally, bags were placed over their heads, and they were laid across the rock like on a table. As we cut to a flashback where Farris deduces the bodies are warm, so it just happened, we move back to the present and Deacon talks about the other victim that was placed in a different spot before going on a bit of a spiel about being people’s protectors in the position they’re in. What is Deacon’s deal? Well, he’s here to finish the job, just like Jimmy. Deacon thinks it’s the same guy who did these killings and just moved to a different location. When Deacon drops off Jimmy, he hands Deacon information on his list. Two of the five appliance store employees have records. One guy is 55 and the other is in his late 30s and lives in Hollywood. Both were assaults. Jimmy doesn’t think anything of it, but he gives Deacon all the info he needs. Doubling down, he doesn’t think Deacon’s hunch is right, and Deacon clearing his conscience is his own business. However, if he lets Deacon try to clear his conscience by solving the case, it solves Jimmy’s case for him, so he’s cool with Deacon’s help. He just makes it known not to screw him. Upon exiting Deacon’s truck, Deacon asks what Julie’s last supper was. Intrigued, Jimmy says it was roast beef and questions why.

“It’s the little things that are important, Jimmy. It’s the little things that get you caught.”

My Thoughts:

John Lee Hancock’s long-awaited The Little Things was in a pre-production state since the early 1990s. Despite it being finally made thirty years after it was initially conceived, it’s almost like it didn’t matter, as the filmmaker’s handling of every major aspect of this slow-burning throwback of a crime drama feels like it came straight out of the time period it represents in its neo-noir feel and presentation and bleak storyline, complimented by John Schwartzman’s understated cinematography work. Along with a great trio of actors leading the cause, this dismal look into the underbelly of seedy Los Angeles and three main characters who have more layers than they are initially portrayed to have does garner enough attention to intrigue viewers and fans of each star. For the most part however, it’s all for nought. It takes a while to get to anything remotely attention grabbing, the tone is consistent but the energy is at a standstill for a majority of the movie, there’s not much that separates it from other better crime dramas with similar premises, and the overall result of the story is much more underwhelming than expected, albeit with some solid twists here and there. The Little Things is a decent viewing as a whole, but it’s a relatively skippable affair.

The most disappointing aspect of The Little Things is that it’s been done before and by better people. Regardless of the unexpected third act, the movie doesn’t give us anything new on this type of crime drama. Veteran cop characters who have been dealing with guilt and regret from their past and are looking at the newest case as redemption is a premise that has been done to death, and The Little Things doesn’t shed any new light on the subject matter or add much of intriguing plot development to throw things off other than the great sequence between Sparma and Jimmy in the desert and the implications of the aftermath. Nevertheless, by this timeframe in the movie, there’s a good chance that the viewer is already half asleep due to the series of bland details regarding the case that led to this crucial defining moment. Actually, the case itself isn’t that interesting either. Though it’s true that most of the time, the best part of a crime drama usually isn’t the mystery aspect or how the killer pulled off his murders unless you have a real classic on your hands. Even so, if the developing working partnership between the main characters only has a few sputtering scenes that make the viewing worth it, the hope is that the mystery at the very least can make up for the lack of interest in the rest of the story. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case with the film. None of the supporting characters are relevant or have much to do with anything other than deliver more expositional plot stuff for Jimmy to relay to Deacon, and its relatively uneventful sans for a few moments. The film is a slow-burn to a fault and teases its stature being between a dark thriller on the verge of being an underrated gem and a mundane and forgettable cop movie with some solid A-listers attached to it. The key word is “tease”, as it was mostly the latter. As a matter of fact, I was shocked at how basic it ended up being. Again, the third act and ending were ambitious and showed some life in an ironically depressing finale, but the middling results of the first half of the movie keep us all from appreciating Hancock’s work all-around.

The casting is also strange to me. Now, Denzel Washington is not the problem here. Deacon being this remorseful veteran cop protagonist is written well to Washington’s strengths, and his issues with attempting to retain his faith amidst the grave challenges he has faced in his personal and professional lives is done very well. My problem is with the other two weirdos. I’m not sure if I’m alone in this, but it’s too difficult for me to buy Rami Malek as a normal person. At one point, it felt like he was the killer just because he has an inability to act as if he’s a human being. If he has something to latch onto that fit his strengths in his looks, speech pattern, and striking presence, Malek can be fantastic. On the other hand, I find it flat-out difficult to suspend my disbelief in seeing him play a “regular” cop in Los Angeles who’s looking to find the bad guy. When his wife Ana sees a change in his demeanor and asks him if everything is okay, it implies that now he’s acting weird. My question is how can she see the difference? The way he speaks as Jimmy Baxter and the way he moves and reacts to others just doesn’t strike me as a respected detective but rather a suspicious cop that we need to keep our eye on. Considering the fact that we are never given any indication that he might be a bad guy or have trouble at all in his personal life, this is completely the fault of the actor or a blind casting director trying to hire who’s hot right now. A reasonable role for Malek to play is the villain, the weird guy at the office, or someone’s superior since he was decent at dressing others down in the first act when he was trying to be the no-nonsense cop. However, Jimmy being the strait-laced detective to Deacon’s antihero doesn’t mesh because Malek is too strange to pull it off. The unraveling of the character fits Malek as time moves on, but it never hits a level to where it makes sense of him getting the role over someone else.

Even Jimmy having a family is weird because it never comes off as natural. You cannot sit there and tell me there is nothing goofy sounding about Malek’s line delivery when Sal tells him they found a car registered to Sparma two weeks ago and it was abandoned and Jimmy responds with, “Well, tow that sucker in”. He couldn’t have said it in a more bizarre and unintentionally sexual way. Malek doesn’t look comfortable in anything he does to make it look like he’s some sort of average, everyday person existing in society. Some of his responses are laugh-out-loud funny even when he’s trying to be serious like when he’s told of Stan Peters’s suicide. He just pauses for a moment before saying, “That’s not good” and I found myself cackling. My only solution to this is making every character Malek plays a sleep-deprived freak like how he was in Buster’s Mal Heart. Now THAT is a perfect role for his strengths. Had his Jimmy Baxter have this trait, I may have bought his odd interactions with people. Jimmy does lose some sleep over the case at some point but because he’s a weird dude to begin with, it doesn’t make the impact in the story that it should. While we’re on the subject, I still laugh thinking about Malek’s Jimmy asking his co-workers, “Is this our boy?” to see if the suspect is the killer. It’s supposed to sound like he’s being tough and/or desperate, but he comes off as a creepy robot. Speaking of creepy, Jared Leto does a decent job at being unsettling but considering the lengths he tends to go for a lot of his roles to create something fresh and creative, his performance as Albert Sparma was somewhat disappointing. Much like the movie itself, Leto’s Sparma was nothing we haven’t seen before. The only thing that seemed like a Leto creation was Sparma’s exaggerated walk to emphasize his belly, but it was way too performative to be taken seriously. I get that the Busch Light-drinking Sparma is a little out of shape, but this “fat guy walk” was almost cartoonish. It came off as an actor who knew there were cameras on him and acted accordingly rather than a person living in the moment.

Though you could argue that it was just Sparma overdoing it because he knew he was being watched by Deacon, Jimmy, or the both of them, I think that would be giving the movie a little too much credit. Plus, it wouldn’t even accomplish anything for him. Then again, this does check out. His character’s whole MO is being a colossal timewaster, which is kind of hilarious. Truthfully, it’s one thing I did enjoy because I don’t know if we have ever seen something like this. Through the trailers and most of the movie, Leto’s suspicious, antagonizing portrayal of “crime buff” Albert Sparma is that of a lonely low life who sets the tone for the film by being the most suspicious murder suspect alive. The whole movie is geared toward making the viewer sit there dumbfounded and ask, “Okay, what are we even doing? How is this guy NOT the killer? Cuff him!”. Sparma knows how he comes off to people and revels in it, making everyone believe in his apparent “nefarious” intentions. Basically, he lives and dies to fuck with people at any cost, a Twitter user before it existed. He has no motivations and doesn’t seem to benefit from the situations he puts himself in whatsoever. Sparma just wants to piss off cops who take their jobs seriously by accepting and implicating himself for no other discernible reason other than the fact that he’s a dick. He’s a surprisingly intelligent one at that, as evidenced by him tricking Deacon during his highway chase and pulling up right next to him, or when he knew they were illegally entering his apartment in that rush of a sequence and subsequently standing right next to an unsuspecting Jimmy with a drink in hand after he called the cops on the break-in. Sparma isn’t just a timewaster either. He’s a low-key mastermind that could be a menace to the city of Los Angeles if he wanted to. Despite the performance being derivative, the character is uniquely written when all the facts are taken in. By the time the third act happens, the somewhat shaggy dog-like reveal is actually a good one because it can’t be foreseen in any way.

It’s not necessarily satisfying but it’s an original development and result that should be commended for being as daring as it is. You don’t see stuff like that often. As undercooked as the main characters are (or maybe a lack of using new seasonings if we’re still in the metaphor mood), it’s quite amusing that the outlier of the trio proves the worth of his characterization by being the one guy who is exactly who he is, as opposed to the “heroes” of the movie consisting of a sorrowful protagonist with a lot of baggage that is more of an antihero than we realize, and the young upstart with a great track record who is facing his toughest case yet and is starting to show cracks in his confidence to the point where he reaches to the stars to pin this thing on someone. The oddball suspect who is so suspicious that it’s almost too obvious is funny in retrospect, and I appreciate the balls of John Lee Hancock in his detrimental decision (SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS) to have the character succeed in wasting the time in everyone in the story as well as the audience, so everyone feels like shit when the credits roll. It’s a dark and depression finish but also euphoric in its fearlessness and Deacon somehow finding a version of redemption in such a twisted manner. It sends us off by relaying that sometimes, you aren’t meant to find a solution, and it is what it is. Additionally, don’t get caught it up in the details, and do not take your work home. By the end, you realize that The Little Things is not your traditional cop movie but rather the grim reality of what being a detective or member of law enforcement can actually do to you if can’t separate yourself from the job. It’s all about the little things in life on both sides of the coin. One needs to appreciate the little things. On the other hand, the little things can also rip you apart if they go unnoticed. Again, it’s the little things that get you caught in more ways than one.

You know what? I’m starting to like the title.

Regardless of where you stand on Sparma’s importance to the film, the interrogation scene where he’s brought in as a suspect was the best scene in the movie by far. First of all, it’s a joy to see Jared Leto and Rami Malek meeting each other in a “weird off”. It’s like if Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera finally met. Sparma enjoying himself and responding with feigned concern while looking at pictures of the bodies and sarcastically saying to Jimmy, “Holy guacamole!” or “11 more, you can make a calendar” was very entertaining. As Sparma reveals more about how he knows the process of an interrogation and he doesn’t look intimidated whatsoever, it adds quite the wrinkle to the mystery because Sparma relishes in antagonizing the two ultra-serious cops at every turn, like when he talks about the dead girl in the picture with, “She was a cute little thing, wasn’t she?”. He knows exactly why he’s here, he’s fully aware of how police proceedings are, and he goes out of his way to pick them apart with enough subtle jabs and uncaring quips that would get a rise out of anyone. It’s done well and not only shows how the mind game playing Sparma is a different animal entirely, but it shows how underprepared and easily frustrated the respected Jimmy can be and how Deacon’s reputation for losing control precedes him. It gives the audience a highly memorable scene where we start to realize how far off they actually are from solving this thing, despite it seeming within their grasps at first. I love it when Deacon tries to be tough by insisting that they have him by the balls, and Sparma isn’t worried in the slightest. If they brought him in, he knows they aren’t close, and the viewer is in on it too at that point. Also, any interaction the furious Jimmy has with the smug lab guys was very funny (“What is it exactly you guys do?”- “We make you look good in court”). It was another great way to show off how easily Jimmy can flip, despite having such a positive reputation and track record. His lack of patience when faced with a real challenge only further foreshadows his undoing.

Religion has been a constant in a lot of Denzel Washington’s characters, and this doesn’t change here. This time, Washington’s Deacon believes in God “when there’s thunderstorms or dew on the ground”, but he has struggled. Because of everything he’s been through in life and the devasting, career-altering decisions of his past that led him to live such an empty life in his older age, he admits that when he sees what he sees, he thinks God is “long past giving a shit”. It’s an attempt at a redemption arc, not only to solve this case by any means necessary, as they are running against the clock because of the rising body count and the feds potentially being brought in because of the lack of results, but also with redirecting Jimmy’s trajectory in life. Like Deacon, both men are engrossed in their jobs. They take their work home with them, and they can’t live life without thinking of certain details involved in each mystery they attempt to solve. They see themselves as guardian angels for the innocent, which is a heavy thought to carry with you as a detective but an earnest one that those in law enforcement should have in a way. However, Deacon has experienced the negative side of trying to be an idealistic protector of those in need and has failed harder than anyone in the department, which is why his advice to his pseudo protégée (“Word to the wise Jimmy, stay out of the angel business”) are internalized by the audience in understanding what Deacon has been through and what Jimmy can become. Because of this, it also intensifies Deacon’s comment about how he’s still doing this for himself. It makes it difficult to discern where he is at mentally as well since he looks to be on the verge of falling apart. Fortunately for him, Jimmy starts to noticeably crack first, so Deacon becomes the calm one by necessity and has to take on the duty of being his guardian and cautionary tale for what is to come if Jimmy crosses the line.

Jimmy is adamant in his hunch stating, “Wherever he goes, I mark it for search warrants. He tries it again, I catch him in the act…When I’m with him, nobody dies. Nobody dies on my watch”. It’s enough for Deacon to excuse himself from this strategy and bring him back to reality to say, “How long is your watch?”. It’s as long as it takes with Jimmy, and Deacon knows he needs to be the watchful elder despite his own noted problems.

No matter what he says though, Deacon stands in the middle. He still takes his duty as a cop seriously because he is in fact a protector. We see it when he’s tailing Sparma and says to himself about the hookers “You don’t know how lucky y’all are” after Sparma drives away without picking them up. Deacon sees himself as someone who can be the hero for these people again, someone who can make up for what has happened previously. At the same time, he is doing this for himself because his need for redemption is technically a selfish act, but who could blame him? He is haunted every day by what happened, as seen with how he imagines the dead women physically in the room with him to increase his obsession in solving the case (“It’s never over”). It bothers him every waking day and the reopening of Rathburn case has forced him to revert to his old ways to where he HAS to solve it. The additional hurdle is how much he sees himself in Jimmy. They have the same moxie, determination, and the same penchant for getting lost into a case to where it becomes an obsession. After new revelations about Sparma shoot a hole into what they’re doing two days before the feds may come in, a joke is made about Jimmy finding Deacon after his next heart attack. Adding on, a point is made before Jimmy leaves the room.

“It’s his destiny. Don’t make it yours”.

Everyone is starting to see how Jimmy is becoming more like Deacon by the day because of their partnership. Since nobody likes or trusts Deacon, they’re giving him the same advice Deacon even probably would. Jimmy’s struggle with how he naturally reacts to detective work and is instincts kicking in to convince him that he’s so close to solving the case is a cool development to keep an eye on, especially when he starts to internally tear at the seams. When Deacon embraces him and states, “That’s my boy”, the terrifying reality of what has happened sets in like a knife to the gut.

Though the movie has a bunch of irrelevant details like Deacon describing the songs of his youth (which basically serve to make sense of the series of old love songs as the movie’s soundtrack) or the aforementioned unimportant cast outside of three stars, I did say I learned a bit about actual police work in regards to how many things have to come together for someone to be implicated in a crime. The whole discussion about the identifiers on fingerprints and how difficult it is to match up, with the lab guy showing an agitated Jimmy that he has more identifiers than Sparma to prove his point that it’s not that simple, was an eye-opener. Side note, the joke about Sparma leaving for Detroit six weeks after the murders and Jimmy asking if there are any unsolved bodies there to which Deacon sarcastically responds, “In Detroit?” was great. There is some humor sprinkled in the movie here and there without losing the tone, and it’s placed everywhere it needs to be. Another favorite was Jimmy inviting Sparma out for a drink as an apology, and Sparma trolling by inquiring if the bar he’s talking about is the one with the potato skins, with Jimmy immediately hanging up out of frustration. We know the characters so well by this point, it makes the joke even better.

The Little Things was not worth the anticipation, but it’s still mildly entertaining for a one-time viewing. It’s cynical and cheerless in its message and style, but it fits the story that filmmaker John Lee Hancock was trying to tell. Additionally, it contains quite a few moments of brilliance from time to time. Even so, the production as a whole is a tad too familiar, it gets a little drawn out and almost boring, and it takes too long to get to its best moments. A lack of a secondary angle, help from the supporting cast of characters, or developments outside of the somewhat bland murder mystery do the overall film no favors in staying in our conscious. There are some ideas presented that are enjoyable, but the execution is too moderate to recommend compared to its peers in the genre.

Fun Fact: John Lee Hancock’s first draft was written in 1993 for Steven Spielberg, but he passed because it was too dark. Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, and Danny DeVito were all separately attached before Hancock decided to direct it himself. In a perfect world, this would’ve been a comedy starring Eastwood, Beatty, and DeVito, with Devito playing Jared Leto’s role. According to Hancock, Brandon Lee wanted a role after reading the script sometime before his death.