I find that the more comprehensible Tom Hardy is in a movie, the more I like it.
He has a tight-jawed drawl in Lawless and the film was mediocre. He talks through a drive-thru order box for the entirety of The Dark Knight Rises and nearly ruins the trilogy. Yet in both Warrior and Inception I can understand every word the man utters and those are very good movies. I don’t know if it’s coincidence or not but I’m finding more and more that the ability to make out what someone is saying in the story has a direct connection with whether or not you will understand what is going on. Note: the only exception to this rule is Benicio Del Toro. He can mumble his way through a film and it works just fine. Call it a gift. Or perhaps a blessing.
I am pleased to announce that you will be able to understand just about every line of dialogue in Hardy’s new film, The Drop. Not just muttered by our star but also by almost all those around him. You may have some struggle with Noomi Rapace but I’m pretty sure she isn’t doing it on purpose. She is Swedish even though here she is presented as a native resident of the Bronx. It reminded me of the Schwarzenegger films from the eighties where he was supposed to be someone from Philadelphia and we were to ignore the accent. Noomi does her best.
Hardy’s got an accent too as the tough but simple Bob Saginowski. We see the Bronx through his perspective as all those around him take drastic measures to come up in this harsh world. No one is clean, no one innocent except a little injured puppy that Bob happens upon in a trash can one night walking home from work. The puppy actually leads to much of the conflict you will find in the film and puts Bob on a path that may save him from the corruption all around him.
The narrative is straight and to the point. You are transported to a world where crime is the way of life and most of the characters are fleshed out enough to make an impact. Hardy shines and provides the film its pulse. He is true star who makes unconventional choices and is always interesting to watch (despite my comprehension issues).
The sad thing here is that you will find James Gandolfini in his last performance and he isn’t given much to stretch his skills. The last couple of years have given us some great Gandolfini performances from the deeply disturbed hit man in Killing Them Softly to last year’s charming Enough Said. Here in The Drop he is Cousin Marv who is a lot like Tony Soprano. You’ve seen this before and to make it his swan song drives home the loss even more.
This just speaks to the fact that The Drop doesn’t try to reinvent the genre but operates firmly within it. The straight forward approach works and there is a nice tension that stretches throughout the final act and a reveal that makes the movie sing. It’s a tough guy movie populated with tough guys,plain and simple.
On a final note, Coogan and Brydon speak about Mr. Tom Hardy’s enunciation in this clip from The Trip to Italy