Une affaire de détails

"It's the little things that get you caught," Deke, played by Denzel Washington, tells Rami Malek's character Jimmy. "It's the little things that rip you apart." Unfortunately, I found that second sentiment particularly resonant as I watched "The Little Things."

"The Little Things" had a phenomenal trailer, very nuanced, well lit, choreographed, acted, and most importantly, well edited. Of course, the trailer was only two minutes long. How does the actual film, which is over two hours long, compare? Surely any movie that expands on the technical prowess and acting chops that the trailer set up will be fantastic! The movie does expand on all of the pieces the trailer introduced - in doing so, "The Little Things" takes one step forward, and two steps back. Admittedly, the movie looks good visually; the cinematography is appropriately moody, with dim lighting for the majority of the running time that casts an ominous shadow over its characters.

The acting, too, is incredible. I've seen mixed reviews on Rami Malek's acting in this movie, but I thought he was great, if a little mumbly, which did make it hard to understand him (thank you subtitles). Denzel Washington is, as always, great. He puts on a quiet performance here that takes its time with viewers - you can tell there's something below this character that's waiting to bubble up. Denzel is a professional, and he acts like one; every word out of his mouth feels believable, every action he takes feels realistic for his character. Watching him and Malik collaborate to catch a killer is truly entertaining - Deke sucks Jimmy into his obsessive mindset, and it's interesting watching both of them fall deeper into the rabbit hole they've dug for themselves.

Jared Leto as the might be, might not be killer is fascinating. Now granted, I may be biased because I like Jared Leto, but I thought he was pretty good in the role. His character was perfectly bizarre, always keeping Deke and Jimmy on their toes. Sure, Jared's character may act like a complete weirdo, but is he a killer? The movie keeps you, and its characters, guessing, which I appreciated. The story, which obviously focuses on these three characters, is elevated by the amazing performances. In a better film, I could see some serious Oscar contenders.

Yes, I did say "in a better film," because "The Little Things" does start to fall flat. Let's talk about the editing - did Olivier Megaton secretly direct this? Who decided on the editing style of this movie? There were a distracting amount of cuts in practically every single scene - for example, a scene where Denzel says goodbye to his dog before getting in his car has probably upwards of ten cuts. Similarly, a scene where Deke and Jimmy are eating breakfast has probably 20 cuts. There is rapid fire editing at play here, and I'm not sure the reason why. The film would've greatly benefited from a slow and steady editing style that allowed the camera to linger on its scenes and characters; instead, we get something akin to Paul Greengrass, which definitely doesn't fit the tone of the movie.

Because of that, tonally, the movie is inconsistent. The pace feels all over the place, with the film only picking up when Jared Leto's character comes in the picture. Unfortunately, he starts to play a major role about an hour or more into the movie, which means you spend a majority of this film's length focusing on nothing really memorable. Additionally, the movie felt too short, even though it was over two hours long. There had to be scenes cut out of here, perhaps even scenes that further expanded as to why Deke and Jimmy were so obsessed over Jared Leto's character. It seems like they pick him as a suspect out of thin air; as you hear in the trailer, they find him suspicious because his car has high mileage. That's it? After Deke discovers this, they seem laser focused on nailing Leto's character, and I was wondering if I somehow missed another clue or piece of evidence that made Deke and Jimmy get so fixated.

I did really enjoy the ending and overall message of the movie - this is definitely not a crowd-pleaser, and I commend the so different approach that the movie took. However, I really can't excuse the awful editing and the stagnant pace. In a better movie, the first hour would've been the first 30 minutes, with Leto's character being introduced early to build the tension and obsession of Jimmy and Deke. However, because "The Little Things" spends its first hour on nothing too significant, by the time Jared's character is finally introduced you'll wonder what the movie can possibly pull out of its hat to keep you interested now that it's almost over. "The Little Things" is a film with great performances and a really interesting premise that is brought way down by its editing, pacing, and tonal inconsistency. It's a perfectly watchable film, but with this cast, it should've been much better than it ends up being.

I enjoyed this movie. From the start I was enthralled by Denzel's character, he is a flawed man and he is dealing with the consequences of his choices. Rami Malek is masterful as a "by the book" cop working a seemingly endless string of predatory murders. They team up and are forced to make the most difficult decision a public servant has to make. This movie questions the essence of justice and the law.

People are so used to gun fights and car chases when it comes to detective stories these days. Especially in movies. This was a deep dive into how frustrating real police work can be. A lot of fumbling around in the dark, chasing your tails, being obstructed by the very law you swear to uphold. The real question the movie poses is how far are you willing to go in order to catch a killer?

Joe Deacon, A Deputy Sherriff in a regional police force, is sent to LA to fetch some evidence for a case. In LA he is reunited with many former colleagues as he was a homicide detective there. He is also drawn into a perplexing serial killer case, the details of which are very familiar.

Reasonably interesting, though had the potential to be brilliant. Started off well, with decent character development and an intriguing plot. Good casting and performances too. Denzel Washington puts in his usual solid performance, Rami Malek is good and Jered Leto does what he does best - act as a weird, off-the-wall character.

However, just when this looks set to be heading for something fantastic, cracks start to appear. The plot is less watertight and plausible and then it suddenly takes a rather tangential direction. This direction could have been a masterstroke if handled correctly but unfortunately it isn't. The ending is quite the damp squib. It is dressed up to appear quite profound but it isn't.

So quite disappointing in the end. If writer-director John Lee Hancock had stuck with the initial plot and made a tension-filled crime drama this could have been great. Instead he tries to take it in another direction and while this is more original, his plot is weak, making for an unsatisfying conclusion.

It's 1990 southern California. A young female motorist is harassed by a mysterious muscle car. L.A. Sheriff's Department homicide detective Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) investigates a murder. Kern County deputy sheriff Joe "Deke" Deacon (Denzel Washington) happens to be in town to retrieve evidence for another case. He's a former detective from LASD but left after some unspecified incident. He finds Jim's case to be connected to his former case. The two starts to suspect Albert Sparma (Jared Leto) who drives a muscle car to be a serial killer.

This is trying to be Se7en and True Detective and other high concept crime mystery with a twist. It's interesting in some aspects but falters in others. First and foremost, this is not a whodunnit. The movie piles on all the suspicion on Sparma with only a small wink at the fingerprint guy. Quite frankly, it's either Sparma or not Sparma. Anyone else would be meaningless anyways. There is some hope of turning this into a character study of these three people. That's a 50/50 proposition in this case. Denzel can sleepwalk through this role and I'm not saying that he is. I'm also not saying that he isn't. With Rami and Jared, the film has two of the most outlier actors around. It may be one too many. They are pushing very hard and at times, they push the movie over the edge. Finally, I have issues with the final confrontation. There are problems with it and I don't like it. Nevertheless, I still like the three actors and it's always interesting to see them go to work.