The Little Things looks like a great movie on paper with an all star cast and a thriller, mystery for a plot. Unfortunately, it isn’t.
If you take a look at the all star Academy Award winning cast and the plot of The Little Things you probably get the impression that there is no way this movie can fail. Well unfortunately, it never reaches its full potential. Now, that isn’t to say that it is all bad, because it isn’t. It just isn’t as fantastic as it could have (should have) been.
This is largely in part to the length, the pacing, and the ambiguous ending. Audiences are likely to feel as if there was almost no point to watching this movie. All that being said, there were moments that I enjoyed about this movie.
The Little Things is the story of Deke, a Deputy Sherriff, who is trying to solve an old case. When bodies turn up that could be connected this unsolved murder, he teams up with Sargant Jim Baxter to catch the killer. What follows is two hours of the pair tracking down leads, and the audience learning more about Deke’s past.
What Works With The Little Things
Let me start with the obvious part of this movie that works — the cast. You have three Academy Award winning actors in Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto. They all do the best that they can with the script, although I feel that Washington is the standout of the three. Leto seems to be playing too much of a character, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but his performance feels a bit too over the top. As for Malek, he does an alright job, but he is normally a much better actor and his skills feel wasted.
There are quite a few times these actors interact with each other on screen, and they are some of my favorite moments. Malek and Washington have a lot of “buddy cop” type relationship that had me chuckling here and there. The one liners and the way they treated each other worked for the two of them. Even if not for the complete story.
There is a standout scene where all three of these award winning actors are in an interrogation room. This is a suspenseful and interesting moment in the film, and one that had me changing my theory about the killer. Unfortunately, I would never find out which theory, if any, were right.
Another scene that stands out to me is a conversation that Washington has with a dead body in a morgue’s office. That is the most in depth this movie got, and I felt like I learned a lot in that moment. Likely a testament to his acting, and not to the script.
What Doesn’t Work With The Little Things
I have two big issues with this movie. The first is that it is just too long. I don’t know why nearly every movie recently feels like it has to be two hours long, but it doesn’t. All to often this makes the movie drag, throws the pacing off, and just doesn’t work. If the plot was strong enough, the length might have worked with The Little Things, but unfortunately it seemed like they were just trying to draw out suspenseful moments only in the interest of making it longer.
The biggest fault of this movie is that the ending doesn’t give the satisfaction that it should. If someone is going to sit through a two hour movie creating theories and making guesses, they shouldn’t be left with an ambiguous ending. Honestly it made me wonder why I even bothered to pay attention the whole movie, for no real payoff at all.
As for the cinematography and the action, it fell a bit flat as well. Yes, there are moments where tension is built up, as it should be. But all too often these moments went on for too long. There were a few cinematic angles that I liked a lot — especially one of the final scenes that takes place in a desert. As it zooms out the scene we see it both beautiful and morbid. Unfortunately that is only one of a handful of moments I found to be that way.
Overall The Little Things is slow, boring, and it feels like nothing ever really happens. There is a murder mystery that is going on, however the movie focuses much more on the background of Deke (Washington) and why he is so hung up on solving an old case.
Overall Thoughts
The Little Things isn’t all bad, but it isn’t great either. Unfortunately it feels all too familiar and leaves the audience with an unsatisfactory ending. This looks great on paper with an all star cast and thriller mystery plot, but it just never reaches it’s full potential.
If twenty to thirty minutes were cut out, The Little Things could have been more consistent and likely would have been much better. I sit worth a watch? If you have HBO Max and will get it for free, check it out — but I wouldn’t pay to see it in theaters.
About The Little Things
Deputy Sheriff Joe “Deke” Deacon joins forces with Sgt. Jim Baxter to search for a serial killer who’s terrorizing Los Angeles. As they track the culprit, Baxter is unaware that the investigation is dredging up echoes of Deke’s past, uncovering disturbing secrets that could threaten more than his case.
The Little Things comes to theaters and HBO Max on January 29, 2021.
