I watched this tonight and it's clear that there is something off about the film. Denzel Washington is watchable as always and stands head and shoulders above everyone else, I didn't particularly care for Rami Malek, who was intense but seemed miscast and physically unbelievable as his kind of detective, so sleight of build he is. Jared Leto just seemed to be doing some kind of shtick and it's strange to see so much praise for his work here. He wasn't terrible, but his character was pretty annoying and seemed to have crossed over from a zanier and less serious version of the film.
Towards the end, I actually thought they were building towards
[Show spoiler]Denzel somehow being the killer, meaning he would have shot that girl in the chest deliberately to avoid her revealing his identity
. I think this might have been considered and discarded at one point because the film seems to want to go there, especially in the end, although I don't think it does because
[Show spoiler]it then reveals that Deacon had to buy the red barrette he mailed to Baxter
. However, the ending is
[Show spoiler]a bit too ambiguous for its own good and for all we know, Deacon could have mailed another red barrette and kept the real one the girl was wearing
, even though the film doesn't show that.
Also, I don't know why Hancock included so many shots of Denzel making faces at the camera. To some extent, this is part of Washington's acting style, but in this movie, it happens a lot and the camera really calls attention to it, particularly as there are so many shots of Washington looking downright grumpy.
I also have to say that I felt like I noticed a lot of anachronisms in the movie and much of the set design and many of the props just didn't feel like 1990. For example, the TV in the room where Malek is talking to the reporters looks like it is from the turn of the century and the autopsy photos seem to all have been taken with digital cameras. Oftentimes it was something that wasn't the focus of the scene and I get that the film's budget will only go so far to recreating the time period, but nevertheless, I found such things were sticking out to me, especially when it would have been relatively easy to make them more authentic.
I will say though, in the absence of a 4K UHD release, Warner's Blu-ray is the way to go. As has been pointed out, this is a very dark film with a lot of shadow detail and the Blu-ray handles it very well indeed. I noticed no compression artifacts or banding, either.
The movie isn't all it could be, but it's a fun way to kill a bit more than two hours and Washington is first-rate as usual. The film is worth seeing for his performance alone.
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The Little Things (2021)
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