THE LITTLE THINGS Review

In a genre where advancements in technology have alleviated many of the difficulties in getting answers to tough questions in criminal cases such progress has also forced writers to be doubly creative in their efforts to outwit the viewer when it comes to a good mystery and/or crime thriller. This may not wholly be the reason writer/director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks) turned to his twenty-eight year-old script for a film set some thirty years ago when looking for his next project, but as the film unfolds it begins to feel like one of the only reasons to justify re-visiting this story. It’s not that The Little Things is a bad movie. In fact, it’s quite an interesting one in terms of objective, but what it means to do and how successful it is at executing said intent are two entirely different things. There is real promise, real ambition in Hancock’s “too smart for its own good” approach to the screenplay that sees the filmmaker playing with the conventions of the B-movie crime drama and hoping to bring a real insight into the vastness of the world detectives inhabit rather than a single, insulated tale of good cops chasing down promising leads that inevitably lead to a successful capture. It wants to be about the lasting effects these cases have on detectives, the torture being unsuccessful can cause, but the idea becomes overshadowed by a million others as Hancock tries to convey his rather straightforward story of struggle through an overly complex guise; layers are needed sure, but to emphasize the point - not cloak it completely. Furthermore, this introspection as it were is executed in such plodding fashion that by the time interesting aspects concerning the core case do begin to introduce themselves the viewer is hardly invested in what’s happening...much less anticipating who might be the big bad wolf hiding under the covers. The Little Things is a film desperate to dissect obsession, guilt, and the aforementioned torture spurned by as much. It means to tackle these generationally as the symptoms go hand in hand no matter the changing times: when it's your responsibility to prevent people from becoming victims, from becoming less than what their shells present what is it that can heal your soul and your self-esteem should you fail? These are interesting questions albeit ones that have naturally been explored before in plenty of genre flicks from the time in which this is set, but again - despite the good intent - the meaning can't help but get lost in the sluggish translation of the narrative. The Little Things is never not intriguing, this much is true, but given the depths it seeks to explore it shouldn't be nearly as forgettable as it is.  

WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS Review

It is evident from the word go that When the Bough Breaks is campy trash, but the most critical question campy trash always has to answer is whether or not it's fun campy trash. Director Jon Cassar has worked on many a television series which makes sense because When the Bough Breaks is very much along the lines of what the Lifetime network routinely produces. Everything feels rather staged and mostly inauthentic save for a single character who seems to be the only one in this universe within which such movies as this take place who understands real struggle while everyone else walks around-money being no object-without a care in the world. One might think, given these circumstances, that When the Bough Breaks might be a bit of a relief to the onslaught of tentpoles and big-budget/high concept offerings the summer movie season has just delivered in that it is (technically) an original story that remains just familiar enough to attract the necessary audience to justify its existence-not to mention it's a movie mostly made to cater to adults. And yet, this familiar story of seduction offers nothing new by way of cheap thrills or even openly ridiculous tension. Rather, Cassar's film takes itself so seriously and genuinely yearns to be a somber drama that it turns into a plodding and rather boring affair instead of pure trashy fun. That the film doesn't bother to have any fun with its otherwise farcical tone is a shame as trying as hard as the film does to come up with credibility when all they have is camp only makes the final product that much worse. To those points, When the Bough Breaks is a movie that will take more heat for what it stands for and represents rather than the actual content in produces. This meaning that the pieces are in place-Morris Chestnut and Regina Hall are seasoned veterans of this type of melodrama (unfortunately) and audiences can go through the motions of the film knowing the story beats that will clearly be hit and yet despite all of this being somewhat blatant rip-offs of other movies we've seen over the years both Chestnut and Hall as well as newcomer Jaz Sinclair are each more than capable of pulling anxiety and tension out of the situations their characters find themselves in. Still, When the Bough Breaks is overall a lazy if not competent thriller that could have just as effectively been directed by a board room as it has been a man for hire like Cassar.

DARK PLACES Review

Oh what a difference an interpretation can make. One has to wonder if, after having seen both Gone Girl and Dark Places, which might have been the bigger success had the directors of each switched projects. One could argue the phenomenon of Gone Girl wasn't as much due in large to David Fincher's direction, but more the universal themes of relationships, cheating husbands and the acknowledgement of a very real presence in the exploitation of bad news for good ratings, but I wouldn't. I would argue these elements and the style with which they were presented heavily influenced what audiences took away from the film and that the story is wholly indebted to Fincher's direction. Don't get me wrong, Flynn's Gone novel is a well-written piece of noir that is highlighted by it's alternating narrators and cynical introspection, but it could just have easily been turned into a Lifetime movie and that is the difference between it and Dark Places. Written for the screen and directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner (Sarah's Key) Dark Places attempts to cover all of the seeming ideas and themes floating around in it's source material (I didn't read this Flynn novel prior to seeing the film) where with Gone Girl (I did read this one) Fincher chose to focus on one major theme and let whatever else came to the surface come out of that one focal area. This isn't to say Dark Places is necessarily a failure as a different approach could certainly work with similar material, but in Paquet-Brenner attempting to cram as much as he can into a two-hour movie the film eventually devolves into a standard procedural of uncovering the core mystery rather than being any kind of meditation on the factors that inform the mystery.