The Little Things: Baby's First Dark Thriller
Writer/director John Lee Hancock attempts to go dark with his “throwback” thriller The Little Things, and it just doesn’t work — unless this is your first rodeo with films of this variety. Had it been released in the 90s, it may have been edgy and fresh, but every single one of its major twists, turns, and developments play like tired rehashes of all the other superior thrillers that came before it.
Set in the early 90s, Kern County Deputy Sheriff Joe Deacon (Denzel Washington) is sent to Los Angeles for what should have been a quick evidence-gathering assignment. Instead, he becomes embroiled in the search for a serial killer who is terrorizing the city.
The Little Things is a strange film that wants us all to pretend it’s still 1993, when its script was originally completed, two years before the release of Se7en. The film’s early 90s backdrop is more than just a setting here; it’s a perfect encapsulation of its flawed frame of mind. Despite its 2021 release date, The Little Things remains so beholden to the era in which it was conceived, and its cardinal sin is completely ignoring the existence of all the dark thrillers that have released since its inception. It’s as though the script was plucked from the dusty bowels of a time capsule and produced as is. Sh’yeah, right, as if we wouldn’t notice…
There may have been a point in time when Hancock’s material felt fresh and edgy, but that ship set sail a long, long time ago. Whatever nuance or freshness The Little Things might have possessed back in the 90s is completely trampled on by every film of its kind since David Fincher’s seminal dark thriller, Se7en. Hancock may have had the idea first, but with a release date that’s 25 years too late, The Little Things lurks entirely within Fincher’s vast and illustrious shadow, and it feels like a small, inconsequential, and trivial offering as a result. Without adjusting Hancock’s dated script to better match the expectations of modern audiences, we’re left with something that feels thoroughly uninteresting and painfully familiar.
The fact that Hancock is embarrassingly chasing all the could-have-beens with his 90s-made script is also far from the film’s only flaw, too. Despite its long road to fruition, which absolutely took away any of its impact, The Little Things slumps and slouches in nearly every single area. It’s caught somewhere between Se7en, True Detective, and a bad episode of Law & Order, and it never quite figures out what it wants to be, let alone how to get there. From the surface, it’s beat for beat a stale rehash of Se7en, only inverted. Below all the BS, it’s another film about bad cops covering up their bad things, which the world of cinema doesn’t need any more uninspired renditions of, especially when the effort applied is so minimal. Again, its subject matter may have been at home in the 90s, but it feels massively out of touch with our our modern times, and to make matters worse, it’s difficult to parse what it’s even trying to say.
The editing is noticeably bad here as well. Aside from the drag and pacing issues that could have been avoided in the edit, the scenes throughout The Little Things feel loose and crudely patched together. Frequently, you’ll see cuts on action that don’t match up between shots, which is irritating, but many sequences are also pretty choppy with unnecessarily rapid cuts. Take for instance an early morning scene where Denzel’s Deputy Sheriff Deacon has breakfast at detective Baxter’s house; within this short two-minute scene you’ll find many cuts that ballistically bounce around the room for no apparent reason, and it’s quite dizzying. The story also never reaches a point where it feels compelling, either, and it’s made all the more disappointing when it essentially leads up to an outlandish and anti-climatic climax.
John Lee Hancock has always been a safe director who churns out well-cast bubblegum for major studios, like Disney or Warner Bros., and if anything The Little Things proves he doesn’t have what it takes to really go dark. Even though Rami Malek is incredibly out of place here and exhibits no chemistry with either of his co-stars, the acting is about the only thing that lifts this turd up, which isn’t saying much. Sure, Denzel can still carry a film on his shoulders, but he’s also getting a little tired and ineffective. Sure, Jared Leto still shows a knack for playing eccentric weirdos because he’s both eccentric and weird. But, let’s be real, if Jared Leto being weird is the most interesting aspect of your film, then your movie has got a pretty big problem.
Recommendation: If you’ve ever seen a dark thriller before, chances are that The Little Things will have very little to offer. If you’re anything like us, you’ll want to rewatch something like Se7en instead. So, just save yourself the two hours and revisit something tried and true.
Rating: 1.5 weird and creepy Jared Leto outta 5.
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!