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You can talk to me, says Joe “Deke” Deacon, the cop from Kern County, north of LA, I’m the only friend you have. Denzel Washington is Deke, a short, tired figure, white hair, and a soft, brittle voice. He takes his time with his investigations, keeps straightening a chair and sits down, looks for a long time through a window, at the crime scene, at the dead woman in front of him on the mortuary table in the anatomy: Talk to me.
A black police film, the blackest in a long time, about a serial killer who plays with his victims, placing them in various poses. John Lee Hancock wrote “The Little Things” in the early 1990s when he was a very hot writer from his script for Clint Eastwood’s “A Perfect World”. Later he directed films like “Alamo” or “Blind Side / Die große Chance”. He proposed “The Little Things” to Steven Spielberg, with whom he had a lively exchange, but he did not want to venture into this gloomy world. Back then he had had enough with “Schindler’s List” and the horror of the Holocaust. Eastwood or Warren Beatty didn’t really want to either. So, over a quarter of a century later, Hancock made the film himself: “I wrote it as a current play, now it’s a period picture from October 1990. “No DNA analysis, no cell phones. The cops walk around their pockets full of coins and always have an overview of where the nearest telephone booth is. A streaky haze hangs over the city, the air pollution.
The film starts out funny, with a black hole. At the Black Angus Steakhouse in Kern County, a couple of cocky guests smashed the middle letter on the neon sign above the entrance. Anus Steakhouse … The owner is pretty pissed off, it’s not the first time, he’s figuring out for Deke, who is supposed to investigate the case, how many lightbulbs they are, how much each one costs, how many more servings he has to sell make up for the damage.
Immediately afterwards, Deke has to go to LA to pick up evidence for a local case, where he is drawn into the investigation into a serial killer. He once had a similar case when he was still with the LA police, which remained unsolved – it never let go of him, he fell victim to this obsession: divorce, heart attack, bypass surgery, transfer to the less stressful county -Post. On the way to LA Deke passes the big white cross in the Hollywood Hills.
The police film is the patriarchal genre par excellence, a field of experimentation for male failure
It never ends. Lieutenant Baxter, who is in charge of the case in LA, knows that too. Rami Malek, who played Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, plays him. At first he doesn’t get along with Deke, the two engage in sarcastic small talk, but then they show the same seriousness, the same moments of irrepressible violence, the same obsession. One difference: He is a little bit religious, explains one of Baxter’s colleagues.
The police film is the patriarchal genre par excellence, Denzel Washington has already acted out this in films like “Deja Vu” or “Man on Fire” by Tony Scott. A field of experimentation with male failure and male trauma, detectives and cops who did not do their job – to save women from the attacks of the killer. The doggedness with which they investigate the case and want to bring the killer to his punishment aims at their own redemption.
Deke stays in LA, takes a few days off and starts doing private research. And quickly comes across a suspect who is called Sparma and is embodied by the weird Jared Leto: Sparma is in the mood for its own perfidious game, between dissuasion and confession. A sinister figure of light, an inscrutable messiah, with long hair and a malicious smile, he spreads his arm and would like to show the cops where the body was buried – or maybe not. Baxter soon fell for him. It’s the little things, says Deke, that tear us apart, that betray us. It’s going to be tough for Baxter, a deep black night that doesn’t want to end, and redemption in the end is fabricated.
The Little Things, 2021 – Direction, script: John Lee Hancock. Camera: John Schwartzman. Music: Thomas Newman. Editor: Robert Frazen. With: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto, Chris Bauer, Michael Hyatt, Terry Kinney, Nathalie Morales. Warner, 128 minutes.
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