Rent The Little Things (2021)
3.0 of 5 from 450 ratings
2h 2min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Kern County Deputy Sheriff Joe "Deke" 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. Leading the hunt, L.A. Sheriff Department Sergeant Jim Baxter (Rami Malik), impressed with Deke's cop instincts, unofficially engages his help. But as they track a suspect (Jared Leto), Baxter is unaware that the investigation is dredging up echoes of Deke's past, uncovering disturbing secrets that could threaten more than his case.
- Actors:
- Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto, Chris Bauer, Michael Hyatt, Terry Kinney, Natalie Morales, Isabel Arraiza, Joris Jarsky, Glenn Morshower, Sofia Vassilieva, Jason James Richter, John Harlan Kim, Frederick Koehler, Judith Scott, Maya Kazan, Tiffany Gonzalez, Anna McKitrick, Sheila Houlahan, Ebony N Mayo
- Directors:
- John Lee Hancock
- Producers:
- John Lee Hancock, Mark Johnson
- Writers:
- John Lee Hancock
- Studio:
- Warner
- Genres:
- Drama, Thrillers
- Collections:
- 2021, CinemaParadiso.co.uk Through Time, Getting to Know..., Getting to Know: Denzel Washington
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 10/05/2021
- Run Time:
- 128 minutes
- Languages:
- Castilian Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, English Audio Description Dolby Digital 5.1, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, German Dolby Digital 5.1, Italian Dolby Digital 5.1
- Subtitles:
- Castillian, Danish, Dutch, English Hard of Hearing, Finnish, French, German Hard of Hearing, Italian Hard of Hearing, Norwegian, Swedish
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 2.40:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- A Contrast in Styles: An intimate portrait of how Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto created three polar opposite characters
- The Little Things - Four Shades of Blue: An in-depth look at Denzel Washington's roles in four Warner Bros, cop films: The Little Things, Training Day, Ricochet and Fallen
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Reviews (5) of The Little Things
Not up to par - The Little Things review by CS
Was really looking forward to this but not Densel's usual offering, was expecting more. Good enough story line with suspense and tension, but lacking in some form. Shame, as I usually give his movies 5 stars but this one is only a 2 and a half really.
3 out of 4 members found this review helpful.
Tired and disappointing - The Little Things review by Alphaville
Cop Denzel Washington is on the trail of a serial killer in LA. It’s got to be good, right? Wrong. Everything about this film is dull – the script, the direction, the soundtrack, even Denzel’s performance. His partner Remi Malek’s mannered performance doesn’t help, while even chief suspect Jared Leto succumbs to the general malaise. When the three of them exchange meaningful looks it’s more laughable than tense. Perhaps all concerned should have had a good sleep and started all over again.
3 out of 6 members found this review helpful.
A slow, lifeless & massively missed opportunity considering the cast & filmmaking team involved - The Little Things review by Timmy B
I so wanted this to be amazing. The trailer looked great, the cast incredible (especially Rami Malek coming off the back of his Oscar win,) and the actual story had the potential for something incredible. It was teased as a slow-building, old-style whodunnit cop story, particularly in the style of Insomnia, one of my favourite cop thrillers of all time. Amusingly, Insomnia also starred 3 Oscar winners and focused on an oddball loner weirdo. But sadly that's where the similarities end.
The film as a whole is dreadful. It is an unbelievably dated, boring and glacial trudge through a standard rote story. The biggest problem was the script, which is where the dated criticism is most poignant. The film itself was first written in 1993 and you get the sense that had it been made & edited then, it would have turned out very different and probably would have been inestimably better. But it got stuck in development hell and sadly this is the result.
And I genuinely wanted to love it. It does have a lot going for it. The cast are some of the best actors working today, but they are squandered. For example, one of the biggest missed opportunities was with Malek and Leto. The two of them have and can tap into such a creepy, idiosyncratic and unsettling energy that I thought a proper face-off between them, either in an interrogation room or out on the street would not only be phenomenal but also a given. But this never properly happens. All we get is Malek as the dependable cop who follows Leto and then when the two do meet face to face, it ends not with a bang but a damp squib.
And speaking of Leto, there is something frustrating in the way that he is portrayed, both in terms of his attitude & also his look. I know that there is a temptation in these types of films to make the suspect look guilty, but this is just taken to ludacris levels in The Little Things. Albert Sparma is every single caricature & stereotype it's possible to be. He looks like what a tabloid-reading, curtain-twitching paranoid middle-class housewife would imagine a man suspected of those type of crimes would look like. The only thing Leto doesn't do is cackle, look at the screen and scream in a high pitched voice "I'm doing these evil things!!! Hahaha!" And this is another thing which totally derails the movie: it is too ridiculous to work in a real-world drama and would even struggle in a fantasy/comic book world.
Washington brings the usual gravitas he can muster with ease, but again the film wastes him, which is even more criminal considering the first few scenes with him set up what could be a fascinating story.
The film is fairly competently directed by John Lee Hancock and does have some achingly beautiful night shots as well. But this cannot and does not rescue the film from its schlocky & slow path towards an ending with no real payoff and a movie that never manages to capitalise on the potential it had in spades.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Critic review
The Little Things review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso
The Little Things is such a slow-burn of a detective drama that it burns itself out of any intensity. It’s a film that takes its sweet time trying to weave the personal darkness and introspection of a murder case, where two unlikely detectives track a slippery killer. But in trying to let the shadowy atmosphere coat its investigative exterior, it spends far too much time watching the cigarette burn than to take a drag one would expect from a gritty thriller set in the 1990s.
It’s a big disappointment considering the talents involved. Denzel Washington portrays the aged Kern County Deputy Sheriff Joe "Deke" Deacon, still haunted by the past of murder investigations where the bodies still visit him in nightmares. He finds himself dealing with a serial killer case and has to work with the more collected LAPD Detective Jim "Jimmy" Baxter, played by a calm and calculated Rami Malek.
The two are somewhat mismatched in that Deke gets dirty while Jimmy seems strictly by the book. They don’t clash much, however, as they’re too focused on the job. There’s a moment that solidifies this when Jimmy asks if this type of investigation seems new for Deke. Deke only asks if their job is to still catch the bad guy and that the job hasn’t changed if that’s the case. And for most of the film, they don’t seem to clash much, maybe passively bickering over a dry insult or choice in radio stations.
Their lead suspect is Albert, an aloof bearded man who finds himself more fascinated than frightened by the detectives. He’s played by Jared Leto in a surprisingly subtle performance of a man who likes to toy with his prey but never make things too obvious. He plays on their suspicions and insecurities, willing and eager for them to get closer. Interrogations don’t deter him either, becoming surprised and intrigued when Deke will explode on him.
The film’s title comes from Deke’s focus on micromanaging cases and investigations, often saying this more than once so we don’t forget it. Echoing the detail-oriented approach of Washington’s previous action performance of The Equalizer, Deke analyzes everything when on the job, including looking over garbage. Perhaps something will reveal itself in the pizza boxes and tossed beer cans of the suspect’s rubbish? Of course, it will. Deke has to make some return from defeat. By that pendulum swing, Jimmy must also have a fall from grace to realize the job isn’t so clear-cut as he thought.
The Little Things is just too quiet for its own good, playing more like a low-rent season of True Detective. The somber approach seems less dark for the subject matter of serial killers and police corruption and more ambient in the reflective nature, as though those who break the law are only silently disturbed by their wrong-doings. The soundtrack bolsters this off-tone as well, making the whole film seem far too timid. This is best seen in a stakeout car chase where light piano makes this following-of-a-killer scene far less impactful. This film is so far asleep it borders on sleepy, considering how far Denzel and Rami spend the movie tightlipped and dreary-eyed while Leto lumbers along with his head in the clouds. It’s the little things that make The Little Things such an insignificant movie.