The Little Things Review

By Paul Anthony

First review of the month for me and going with black history month, I decided to review this film because it starred Denzel Washington, who is one of my favorite actors, then you also had the film star Rami Malek, who is also a great talent as well. Last when it comes to stars you also had Jared Leto, who some might think he is a great actor as well, so this film had a lot going for it. Then you had the writer and director John lee Hancock and if you haven’t heard of this name before let me refresh your memory on who this guy is, he’s the director of such films as The Rookie (2002), The Blind Side (2009), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), The Founder (2016) and The Alamo (2004). Just with those four names alone this movie should be great right? Well that’s just it, this might be the case where just maybe all the stars didn’t line up. Though there is some good news and that is Leto did receive nominations for Best supporting Actor from the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild awards. Now, the film was made with a 30 million dollar budget and so far grossed 7.6 million, which was good enough to make the number 1 spot in it’s opening weekend, of course we don’t know what HBO Max’s numbers are so can’t call these films that come out during the pandemic a flop but how did this film really do?

Well let’s look at the plot, the film starts in 1990 when we see a female traveling on an highway when another vehicle starts to taunt her, she pulls over at a gas station which is closed and the driver begins to chase her which she escapes when a trucker stops for her. When then pick a few years later which I am guessing because everything seems to still be in the early 90’s though they don’t make it clear, at this point you just have to assume. Here at this point we meet Kerns County deputy Sheriff Joe Deacon (Washington) who must head to L.A County to get evidence that pertains to a murder case in his county, at this point we meet a young L.A. County homicide detective Jimmy Baxter (Malek) whose working a murder case that reminds Deacon of a case he was once working on that he never got to solve. The two strike up a partnership to solve the case. Deacon is positive that the suspect is Albert Sparma (Leto). Though very little evidence proves this, they still try to prove this guy is the killer but have no such like, until Sparma leads them on a wild goose chase and finally admits he never killed anyone in his life and turns out, he is just obsessed with crime scenes and stories, this makes Baxter mad and kills him with a shovel and Deacon collects everything in Sharma apartments and burns it and to make it seem like they had the right guy afterwards Deacon buys a red barrette and sends it to Baxter, the red barrette was an item that was worn by a murder victim.

Most critics are comparing this film to the hit film seven but basically calling it a knock off. Now I wouldn’t go that far but they do try to make this film seem like its more twisted then it really is but shows us nothing to prove that this film had a lot of twist, basically it tried to be something it’s not. Now I did enjoy the performances of the main stars and I could see why Leto was nominated for best supporting Actor. In the end the film wasn’t horrible but it felt average so I am giving it a C for a rating.

Advertisement