BEFORE: I'm still on track to finish January on time, I may double-up one night to get more films in, or I can drop one from the schedule, my choice. We'll see how I feel next week as February 1 draws closer. Tom Hardy carries over from "The Bikeriders". This is another film that was scheduled into the chain in 2023, but got dropped when my plans changed, or maybe I just ran out of slots and I had to get from "Night Falls on Manhattan" straight to my Thanksgiving movies.
It's freaking cold in NYC, like the high is 19 degrees today - so naturally I had to go in to Manhattan early and deliver a box of receipts from my office to my boss's accountant, 12 blocks away. Then I had to get down to my other job before 2 pm, but I still had time for a nice hot sit-down lunch at a Cuban restaurant in between. It's important to eat a big lunch, it helps you stay warm, and then I'll be cashing in my Dunkin reward points today to get a free large coffee. I'm working the Video Game Awards tonight, there's a party after so I'll probably be working until midnight, then I don't know how I'm going to fit in a movie tonight after that, but I'll try. I don't want to fall behind again.
THE PLOT: Bob Saginoski finds himself at the center of a robbery gone awry and entwined in an investigation that digs deeply into the neighborhood's past - where friends, families and foes all work together to make a living, no matter the cost.
AFTER: This is based on short story from Dennis Lehane, who also wrote the books that became the movies "Mystic River", "Gone Baby Gone" and "Shutter Island". He also wrote episodes of "The Wire" and "Boardwalk Empire", so yeah, I guess maybe the guy knows a thing or two about crime stories. But this really is an average crime movie at best, perhaps elevated by Tom Hardy, who's great at playing tough guys, also I kind of get the feeling from him that he could play the guy on the corner begging for money just as easily. This Bob Saginowski guy is kind of a combination of the two, like he's a mostly regular guy who's sometimes confused about life, but there's a lot more going on under the surface, he's capable of getting violent if he has to protect someone or something. That duality here is probably the most interesting thing about the movie, when they hint that Bob might have killed somebody in the past, and so therefore if he's pushed too far, who knows what could happen?
The gimmick here is that one bar is used as a weekly "drop" for NYC's criminals, and the location keeps changing, so the police can never track all this money. Is this a real thing? In Boston, maybe, but New York? It seems like mobsters would be taking a big chance, trusting all these bartenders and servers making minimum wage with handling thousands of dollars of their money. There's no ledger, no record-keeping, so it's just envelopes full of cash that get put into a secret safe under the bar, and then transported out days later in a hollow beer keg. I'm not saying that something like this doesn't happen, I'd just like to see the paperwork on the research, that's all.
Bob runs the bar for Marv, who used to own the place, but apparently now the gangsters own the bar and have graciously let them keep their jobs as a cover. Well, I guess that's job security, because the Chechen mob's not going anywhere anytime soon. Even if the bar's not turning a profit, I guess this way it's still going to stay open, again, I'm not saying this doesn't happen, it may explain that neighborhood bar you know that always seems to be empty?
This got really confusing for me near the end, like I could follow it up to a certain point. I picked up on the fact that Marv hired the robbers to steal money from his own bar, but does that really make sense? He knew that the Chechens would want that money back, one way or the other, so it should have been easy for him to figure out that his plan was NOT a good idea, because he'd eventually have to give that money back, or make up for it in some other way. Would you spend all your money that you got on payday if you knew you needed it to pay your bills at the end of the month? It's irresponsible of Marv to put his own life (and Bob's) on the line by robbing his own bar. Why not rob one of the other bars that's used as The Drop next week? Maybe Marv just wasn't thinking far enough ahead?
Meanwhile, Bob becomes a dog owner, he finds a beat-up pit bull in a woman's garbage can, and he doesn't realize that the dog was left there as a message from her ex-boyfriend, who comes around to threaten Bob later. Gee, who could have imagined that leaving a hurt puppy in someone's trash doesn't make them want to get back together with you? Really, what was his plan there? The ex claims that the puppy has a chip in it (probably not) and he's got a license that shows he's the real owner of the dog (also, probably not) and he wants $10K for the paperwork or he'll tell the cops that Bob has his dog.
Bob finds a bag outside the bar with most of the money in it, though there's also a body part in the bag and it's literally blood money now. Marv launders the money (again, literally) and Bob somehow knows a bit too much about how to improperly dispose of an arm, which involves a lot of plastic wrap and a trip to the pier. They give the money back to the Chechens (which is also a bit weird, because they think the Chechens tracked down the money, then left it at the bar so they could get it back? Why didn't they just KEEP it at that point? Anyway they're square with the Chechens, so the mobsters say they want to use THIS bar again as a drop on Super Bowl weekend. Umm, sure, again, not following the logic here, the bar got robbed the last time it was used as a drop, so sure, use it again on the busiest drinking and gambling weekend of the year?
Marv lost his two robbery guys, so he hires a new recruit to try and rob the bar AGAIN on Super Bowl Weekend. Are you kidding me? Marv only JUST got out of trouble after being threatened by the Chechens, plus he already KNOWS that if the bar gets robbed, that doesn't matter to them and he'll still owe them for whatever he gives to the robbers. So, yeah, sure, if at first you don't succeed, just try the same dumb plan over again, I guess? Maybe learn what didn't work, change the plan up, or wait a few months so the bosses don't put two and two together? I'm just sayin'...Marv is really stupid, I suppose.
I guess that makes Bob the smart one, or at least the last guy standing, which is essentially the same thing. Hey, he found a way to stay on the mobsters' good side, and also Nadia's ex-boyfriend is history, so there's a clear path to some form of happiness, maybe? Good luck with all that.
Also starring Noomi Rapace (last seen in "Child 44"), James Gandolfini (last seen in "Night Falls on Manhattan"), Matthias Shoenaerts (last seen in "Far from the Madding Crowd"), John Ortiz (last seen in "American Fiction"), Elizabeth Rodriguez (last seen in "Side Effects"), Michael Aronov (last seen in "Operation Finale"), Morgan Spector (last seen in "All Is Bright"), Michael Esper (last seen in "The Creator"), Ross Bickell (last seen in "The Fighter"), James Frecheville (last seen in "Animal Kingdom"), Tobias Segal (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum"), Patricia Squire (last seen in "The Many Saints of Newark"), Ann Dowd (last seen in "Rebecca"), Chris Sullivan (last seen in "The Normal Heart"), Scott Johnsen (ditto), Lucas Caleb Rooney (last seen in "Late Night"), Jeremy Bobb (last seen in "Under the Silver Lake"), James Colby (last seen in "The Company Men"), Mike Houston (last seen in "Joker: Folie à Deux"), Michael O'Hara (last seen in "The Wolf of Wall Street"), David Brown (last seen in "Summer of Sam"), Jessica Tate, John Di Benedetto (also last seen in "Night Falls on Manhattan"), Robert Turano (last seen in "The Goldfinch"), Erin Darke (last seen in "Kill Your Darlings"), Khan Baykal (last seen in "Duplicity"), Jack Dimich, Danny McCarthy (last seen in "The Amityville Horror" (2005)), Cathy Trien.
RATING: 4 out of 10 Christmas decorations (still up on December 27!)
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