Quick Daily Review #62: The Drop (2014)

This was James Gandolfini’s final movie, which is both sad and fitting, for the same reason. It is fitting because this is the kind of movie you very much expect to see him in, and which he excels at, but sad in a way because it is the type of genre film he most wanted to escape after many years spent as a typecast character actor. This is a movie about low level (very low level) ex-gangsters (or associates of gangsters) in New York. As said in another review, Tony Soprano would have whacked out the character he plays here, a desperate bar owner named Marv who wishes to regain control of his bar from the foreign gangsters that have invaded his territory. The main character in the movie is Marv’s cousin and bartender Bob, an affable straight forward and (seemingly) meek character. I don’t want to spoil to much rather than to say Bob meets a girl, and a dog and takes quite a liking to both in a very sweet story, but both the dog and the girl wind up being threatened by a series of strange violent events, well, maybe not so strange considering the neighborhood that is. This is a very easy to watch sort of movie. It is kind of a blending of romantic (dark) comedy and a traditional urban crime film, but it is in no way a chick flick or a movie solely for guys who like gangster movies either, and the story and the characters both deliver a ton of interesting surprises along the way. A very enjoyable movie for its genre.