Pictured Above: ‘The Little Things’ stars Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto.
Courtesy of IMDB
By Sophie Ojdanic
At the movie theater where I work, we have a regular who comes in and asks for a ticket to “whatever’s new,” every week. Usually, he ends up coming back in about 20 minutes asking for a refund because, as it turns out, the movie was bad.
I knew we had struck gold when I sold him a ticket to The Little Things, and he never emerged. The icing on the golden cake? When his showtime ended, he walked out of the theater showing me a single thumbs-up.
I was convinced; this had to be the perfect film.
The Little Things is a crime thriller starring Denzel Washington (you know who that is), Rami Malek (Mr. Robot, Bohemian Rhapsody) and Jared Leto (Suicide Squad). Washington and Malek play a pair of detectives in search of a serial killer. Leto takes on the role of a suspect in the investigation.
Director and writer John Lee Hancock — who also directed and wrote The Blind Side and Saving Mr. Banks — used the stories of Washington’s veteran detective and Malek’s newbie to share the importance of personal closure with failure, rather than letting the little things eat you alive.
Washington even tells the audience in the film’s trailer: “It’s the little things that get you caught.”
Washington and Malek do an excellent job at making their characters seem like dimensional people who have laser-focused on a dimensional goal, while Leto — who I unfortunately must praise in this role — did a great job playing a confusing and twisted character to bounce off of Washington and Malek.
The conclusion of this film fell right in between satisfying and unsatisfying, but that seemed to be the point. Sometimes, you just don’t know, and you have to come to terms with that.
Surprisingly, critics thought less of this film than audiences, with a 47 percent Rotten Tomatoes critic rating and a 65 percent audience rating.
Harris Dang of The AU Review wrote: “The Little Things features all the ingredients that would make a great serial killer feature; top-notch casting, an interesting plot and a talented crew to realize Hancock’s vision. But it just does not reach that potential.”
Most audience criticisms were about the ending of the film, and I can see that, but the ultimate point of The Little Things, I think, is futility. What’s the payoff of the audience going through the journey? Well, what’s the payoff of the characters going through this journey?
Overall, I would rate The Little Things a 7 out of 10. It’s not action-packed like some of Washington’s other films – so don’t expect that – but it’s still an interesting film that explores the mind and fixation.
