The Little Things (Blu-Ray + Digital HD)
Blu-Ray Reviews | May 6th, 2021
Starring: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto, Natalie Morales
Written By: John Lee Hancock
Directed By: John Lee Hancock
Studio: Warner Bros.
Buy On Amazon.com
One of the movies to premiere on HBO Max a few months ago was The Little Things. Now it’s available on Blu-Ray, DVD and digital. It’s a throwback detective drama with some good performances. Depending on your point of view, it could be a hit or miss.
The Little Things is about deputy sheriff Joe “Deke” Deacon (Denzel Washington), who helps out LA lead detective Jimmy Baxter (Rami Malek) with a string of murders. They narrow down their search and start to investigate creepy, repair shop worker Albert Sparma (Jared Leto). The movie makes you think he is the suspect, but then later on – the movie also makes you think: are you sure about that?
I originally watched the movie on HBO Max, and thought the movie was okay. Somewhat slow at times, others parts interesting. The performances from the 3 main actors were good with Jared Leto being especially weird & creepy. So I guess Jared Leto played his usual type of character?
I thought the movie was similar to Se7en in a way; it certainly had its similarities. It just has that cop/detective feel of the 70s-90s. After the 90s, we got gritty type of cop movies so in a way, this is a bit of a throwback to that style.
The ending was a bit baffling to me. I guess it was done on purpose from John Lee Hancock. He wanted people to debate it and figure out if Sparma really did it or not. It certainly makes you feel like he did but the movie goes out of its way to make it known that – we’ll never teeeellllllll. It’s a little bit obnoxious after thinking more about it.
Perhaps the goal was to get people talking, but also showing the side of the police where there’s no one to really root for. Like, oh, they are all pieces of shit and doing things illegally? I think in the end, the movie is mostly forgettable and could have been handled better in some areas. Can’t blame the actors for the film’s shortcomings.
For some reason, Warner Bros didn’t release a 4k version of the movie – at least not yet. The Blu-Ray handles the murky dark tones of the movie well enough. The only featurettes included on the Blu-Ray were featurettes “Four Shade of Blue” and “A Contrast In Styles.” The first one is about the variety of different cop movies Denzel has been in. The second was just interviews with the cast about their characters and working together.
The Little Things won’t turn any heads. It’s a bare bones, detective drama that had a wishy washy ending. The performances were good but nothing award-worthy either. This is something to put on a boring weekend night.
Features:
Four Shade of Blue
A Contrast In Styles
Video:
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio:
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles:
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Bottom Line: A throwback police drama that doesn’t really offer up anything new.
Running Time: 128 mins
Rating: R
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:
