Leigh Paatsch’s movie reviews: Best new flicks and cinema events in Melbourne

REVIEWS: Leigh Paatsch looks at the gritty crime thriller The Drop, the moving My Old Lady and the B-grade comedy Let’s Be Cops plus other move happenings around town.

LEIGH Paatsch looks at the gritty crime thriller The Drop, the moving My Old Lady and the B-grade comedy Let’s Be Cops plus other move happenings around town.

THE DROP

Tom Hardy gives an intense performance in The Drop.

If we are to learn anything from the magnificently miserable crime drama The Drop, it is that there is no honour among thieves.

But there are rules. Stick to them, and you just might stick around to see another day.

The title refers to a traditional obligation asked of the bars and clubs in a grotty corner of Brooklyn.

Every once in a while, each of these booze joints must take a turn at being “the drop”: local slang for a place where hot cash from the proceeds of crime can be held until everything cools down.

If you are a proprietor, the illegal practice is a necessary evil. The mobsters who avail themselves of this service also offer a level of protection that can’t be bought elsewhere.

As The Drop begins in earnest, a busy Brooklyn bar known as Cousin Marv’s has been tapped to take in a truckload of dodgy dough for some Chechen gangsters.

Cousin Marv himself (James Gandolfini) is none too pleased about the imposition.

Resentful of the way in which the Chechens and their ilk have stomped all over his neighbourhood, Marv engineers a scheme that will save him some face. And make him some money.

Marv knows better than to involve his bar manager Bob (Tom Hardy).

He has seen his share of trouble in the past, and is not looking to attract any more. For Bob, a quiet and reflective fellow, the desire to turn over a new leaf is a daily grind.

Visits to church keep him centered.

So too does the rearing of a little bull-terrier pup Bob found abandoned in a sidewalk trash can. As originally penned by author Dennis Lehane, the downbeat, hardscrabble story told by The Drop originally took place in Boston.

The relocation to Brooklyn for the big screen adaptation doesn’t diminish the dosage of dread being administered here as everything goes from bad to worse for everyone connected to Cousin Marv’s bar.

As we already know from Clint Eastwood’s superb adaptation of Lehane’s novel Mystic River, the author has an eye and an ear for the things a desperate man will do and say under pressure.

This is actually Lehane’s first try at a screenplay in his own right, and he’s not out to make friends or soothe nerves on any front.

Lead actors Hardy and Gandolfini (in his screen swan song) know they are working with material of the highest calibre here, and respond with intensely authentic performances that do justice to a killer script.

The uncompromising nature of The Drop — and the all-but-guaranteed likelihood of an unhappy ending for all — means this will not be the first choice of viewers looking a for a night of easy escapism at the cinema.

However, anyone feeling up to the fight will roll with every menacing or melancholy punch that lands with devastating precision.

THE DROP (MA15+)

RATING: 4/5

DIRECTOR: Michael R. Roskam (Bullhead)

STARRING: Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini, Noomi Rapace, John Ortiz.

IN A NUTSHELL: Where better to take a fall than in a dive bar?

LET’S BE COPS

Let’s Be Cops is big on cheap and nasty chuckles.

Let’s Be Cops is a police comedy guilty of weak humour

The new B-grade buddy comedy Let’s Be Cops progresses steadily through three distinct phases.

The first can be labelled Hey, This Is Kinda Funny. This one lasts about 20 minutes or so.

Then comes Umm, This Is Not So Funny Any More. This takes you just north of the one-hour mark.

The rest of the movie? File under Geez, Hurry Up and Finish Already. This wait for the closing credits will take a seeming eternity.

The leading roles here have been handed to mid-strength American comics Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr, best known to Australian viewers as two of the interchangeable dudes from the hit TV series The New Girl.

This pair do have an obvious rapport, and it is this factor alone that earns Let’s Be Cops a pass mark for a fairly amusing opening act.

Johnson and Wayans play Ryan and Justin, two lifelong losers who think they have happened upon a winning idea.

The radical concept that will earn them the women and the respect yet to come their way?

Ryan and Justin will pretend to be LAPD officers.

Just how this dim duo initially gets away with it supplies Let’s Be Cops with most of its laughs.

The uniforms are a cinch. So too is acquiring a police car.

There’s a stack of ’em on eBay, apparently.

Fake pistols and real Tasers are not that difficult to find, either. And why waste a few years in a police academy when there’s a zillion How-To videos on YouTube?

Once Ryan and Justin have explored all the possibilities of pretend policing — telling people to freeze, impounding illicit substances for their own use, and so on — the boys make the mistake of taking the ruse too far.

Soon, they look like being the next casualties in a turf war being waged by ferocious foreign mobsters.

After a fairly solid start, Let’s Be Cops melts down into a sludge of sub-Sandler-esque shenanigans that slows the flow of laughs to a trickle.

Worse still, a mean streak starts to show where women, gays and ethnic minorities are run down for a cheap and nasty chuckle. Let’s be looking for something else to do, huh?

LET’S BE COPS (MA15+)

DIRECTOR: Luke Greenfield (The Animal)

STARRING: Jake Johnson, Damon Wayans Jr., Nina Dobrev, Rob Riggle, Andy Garcia.

RATING: 2/5

IN A NUTSHELL: May the force be elsewhere

Maggie Smith gets too crafty for Kevin Kline in My Old Lady.

MY OLD LADY

No one’s going to mistake My Old Lady for Let’s Be Cops in this or any other lifetime.

This is sensible, straightforward mature-age viewing, devoid of dumb jokes, cheap thrills or goofy gimmicks.

All you will get for the price of your ticket are three impeccably acted performances, and a simple story very well told.

The setting is Paris. New arrival Jim (Kevin Kline) isn’t here for the scenery. This 57-year-old American writer is down to his last dollar, and is only in town for as long as it will take to claim an inheritance from his late father.

Jim is under the impression that Dad’s Paris apartment is his for the selling. This is not exactly the case.

A quirk of French real estate law applying to properties of a certain age means that Jim cannot assume full ownership of the posh pad until its current resident deigns to depart. Or drops dead.

Even though the formidable Madame Girard (Maggie Smith) is well into her 90s, she doesn’t look to be the type who will be turning her toes up any time soon.

What’s more, Madame Girard has no intention of leaving. She knew Jim’s father back in the day.

This would not have been what her old friend wanted.

All of this leaves Jim in a most uncomfortable position. That unease is only set to increase once Madame Girard’s dutifully antagonistic daughter Chloe (Kristin Scott Thomas) moves to fortify her mother’s defences.

Don’t go thinking My Old Lady is about to settle for a trite, easygoing brand of light comedy for its duration.

There is a growing darkness casting a shadow on proceedings that will deliver much more than the deeds to that fancy old apartment.

MY OLD LADY (M)

DIRECTOR: Israel Horovitz (feature debut)

STARRING: Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas.

RATING: 3/5

IN A NUTSHELL: Every right to act her age

We’re giving away a Double Play (Blu-ray/DVD) copy of The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug Extended Edition .

EVEN MORE HOBBITY

The final chapter in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, The Battle Of the Five Armies, is not far away but in the meantime make sure you’re up to speed and then some with the Extended Edition of movie two, The Desolation Of Smaug.

It’s out now and features 25 minutes of extra footage, a Jackson and Philippa Boyens commentary and more than nine hours of bonus features.

For a chance to win a Double Play (Blu-ray/DVD) copy of The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug Extended Edition email [e-mail] once only by 10am tomorrow telling us your favourite movie dragon and why. Include your postal address. Winners notified by mail. Open to Victorian residents only.

A scene from the epic Stalingrad.

RUSSIAN TO THE MOVIES

Russian Resurrection, the largest celebration of Russian cinema outside of its home country kicks off tonight at the Australian Centre For the Moving Image in Federation Square with Vasilisa, a sweeping romance set in Napoleonic times, and continues to the end of next week.

Other movies in the program include the war epic Stalingrad and the 1976 Best Foreign Language Oscar-winner Dersu Uzala.

Details and program at russianresurrection.com.

CH-CH-CHANGES

Ahead of the acclaimed David Bowie exhibition arriving at ACMI next July, a documentary based on it will screen exclusively this weekend at the Palace Dendy in Brighton at 1pm on Saturday and Sunday.

The film traces the Thin White Duke’s long and celebrated career and also features interviews with fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto, and Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker.

Bookings at palacecinemas.com.au.