Jim The Drop (2014) ****In Brooklyn, there's a bar used as a money drop by dangerous Chechen gangsters. Bob (Hardy) works at the bar for his cousin Marv (Gandolfini) who runs the place.Marv had a problem. As a result, Bob has a secret that has haunted him for many years.In the present time, Marv gets stupid again. Placing Bob and himself in danger. Initially, Bob seems to be a timid unambitious drone. He curries obsequious favor with the Chechens. But, he acquires a puppy, then a girlfriend (Noomi Rapace). Someone comes along to threaten both.This film is a quality drama, without the rolling gunfire and chase scenes currently in vogue. Well crafted and well played by the entire cast. Good pacing and effective cinematography. The film is a narrative about the motivation and character of the main cast.In the climatic scene, all is revealed as Bob takes care of his problems. Also earning the respect of the Chechens.Some might find the film to be too sparse. Not enough action and melodrama. But, there is tension and fear aplenty. Clues are there for us to pick over at the conclusion of the story.

TxMike My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library.Once the story starts to develop the viewer realizes it is about Bob, a bartender, played authentically by British actor Tom Hardy. He works in his cousin's bar in Brooklyn, James Gandolfini as Cousin Marv, his last movie role before he died suddenly a few years ago.Bob is a bit uncomfortable as Marv isn't a straight, upstanding businessman. His bar is one of the places used as cash drops for a variety of illegal activities. Bob does his job knowing fully what is going on.But Marv is greedy and gets in with a few shady characters to rob a few thousand from his own bar. The problem is he and everyone underestimate Bob, a guy who has a very soft heart and rescues a puppy that was beaten and thrown into a garbage can. Who can't take a woman or child being mistreated. But also can take being threatened by petty crooks.A good addition to the cast is Swedish actress Noomi Rapace as Brooklyner Nadia, yes named for the gymnast who scored perfect 10s all those years ago. Lots of cursing and violence in spots but it is a really good character study of Bob and how he chooses to navigate through his life.

Devendra Kashyap If you think Tom Hardy is an average actor, You need to watch this film I am sure it will change your opinion. Of all the films that I have watched of the same genre it out stands most of them. The acting was superb and so was the direction. Every minute of this movie will keep you stick to your chair.

Joseph_Gillis which is more relevant here than in most films, and might even be considered a sub-text for it.Perhaps more telling, though, is that the screenplay was adapted by author, Dennis Lehane from one of his short stories; I can recall successful short-story adaptations, but from such as Borges, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Conrad; more often than not, when adaptations of less-feted authors, the plot tends to be stretched to breaking point, where the screenwriter has too many gaps to fill, too much screen-time to pad, and where the story might not have been all that, to begin with.I haven't read the source Lehane short story, so I can only judge what's on the screen, but two things have jumped out at me after viewing the film: one, the conflict between the story's title, 'Animal Rescue', which suggests warmth and compassion, and the film's title, 'The Drop', which the opening voice-over informs us refers to gangsters practices of using legitimate businesses as temporary storage for illicit funds. But yet I don't believe the short story title is entirely ironic, because so much of the film is devoted to revealing Tom Hardy's lead barman Bob character's care and attention for a brutalised and neglected dog. The conflict between those titles suggests more that Lehane was badly compromised between commercial film-making demands, and the intimacy of his short-story characterisation.The other problem I had is the long slow build up, and what it led up to: it's not quite 'deus ex machina' but I had difficulty reconciling the climax with the characterisations that had been slowly and tortuously developed, over 80+ preceding minutes. Which leads me back to the compromise question again.What I did like, though, was the interplay between Bob and the detective, with the detective using their common church-going familiarity to both try to extract information from Bob, and also to get his message across. There weren't enough such inspired ideas, though. I liked Matthias Schoenaerts controlled-scary performance, as legend-in- his-own-mind punk, Eric Deeds. John Ortiz' insidious quiet nagging, as the detective, is another supporting standout. Tom Hardy was just a tad too precious and calculated for me, although he may just have been the victim of too much low-key screen time. (In character motivations, I could make connections with Charles Bronson's similarly-implausible 'Mr. Majestyk') Not the best swansong for James Gandolfini, though - too much of Tony Soprano,albeit a latter-day tired and beaten-down Tony; I would have preferred him to go out on the movie-stealing high of 'Killing them Softly'. That film had all the mood and menace of this one, and then some. Tellingly, perhaps, it's adapted from a novel.