From John Lee Hancock, director of the Academy Award-winning film, The Blind Side, comes a grizzly crime thriller from Warner Bros. Hancock has experience with directing crime dramas, which includes The Highwaymen and the action film, Snow White and the Huntsman. None of them compare to his latest crime drama, The Little Things.

The Little Things stars 3 Academy Award winners in Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto, who make up the core members of the film’s cast. Washington and Malek play the detectives who at first appear to be polar opposites, but who soon become more alike than either would have fathomed. Leto joins them as the creepy, obvious choice for a suspect.

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The Little Things begins with a Nocturnal Animals-type scene, where a young woman is traveling along an isolated road in the middle of the night. A strange and distinctly blue car toys with her on the road, rattling her. She searches for help and only manages to find it in the driver of a passing truck, which allows her to escape the anonymous figure who terrorized her. Viewers then meet Joe “Deke” Deacon (Washington), who is sent to Los Angeles to retrieve a pair of boots to tie a suspect to an investigation in Kern County. In Los Angeles, Deke meets Jim Baxter (Malek), a detective who is a few steps shy of being worshiped by his fellow detectives.

Jim and Deke interrogate Albert

Upon meeting Jim, Malek emits the personality of an entitled, confident (and slightly cocky) detective, which contrasts Washington’s isolated, burdened character. These two are immediately pitched as utter opposites who must choose to get along out of benefit for the greater good. As they grow closer despite the warnings of those around them, Deke quickly finds himself traveling down a familiar path. After earning Jim’s admiration and piquing his curiosity, Deke realizes just how close the two of them have become, and how important the little things can be.

In working the case of a woman who has been murdered in her apartment, Deke quickly notices that the M.O. is similar to an old case of his, that he was never able to solve. Jim and the rest of the department become the subject of more scrutiny from the public as the victim count continues to climb without any suspects for the public to blame. With Deke’s help, Jim believes he can solve the case, giving both himself and Deke a chance to prove something to their peers. From Deke’s first scene, it’s clear that there is something that haunts him and holds him back both personally and professionally. It isn’t until the end of the film that those exact circumstances are revealed, but it isn’t a mystery that’s particularly difficult to solve.

The prime (and only) suspect of The Little Things is Albert Sparma (Leto), a peculiar worker at a repair shop that happens to fall near the site of a few of the crime scenes. It takes roughly 40 minutes into the film before anyone gets their first real look at Leto. Hancock is meticulous in ensuring that no one sees the face of the suspect before Leto’s character is met, meaning there is no way to guarantee that Albert is guilty or not. The Little Things vaguely offers an answer to this question by the end, but it’s not satisfying. Instead, everyone is forced to wonder if Jim made a justified choice after all.

The cycle that Deke has caught himself in and that Jim has now gotten himself webbed in has effects that will continue far beyond the film’s conclusion. Where Jim might be headed after the film’s conclusion isn’t hard to imagine, as Deke has served as a living example from the start of The Little Things until its end. The unfulfilling conclusion is largely because of the case the two have spent the entire film working. Viewers (and the world within the film) are forced to believe that Albert is the killer, even though there is plenty of evidence that challenges that fact.

Of course, there are plenty of films that operate well with an open-ended ending. Christopher Nolan’s films are often adored for their ambiguous endings, especially time-oriented thrillers like Memento and Inception. Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, are other examples of open-ended endings that work well. The issue with The Little Things isn’t that it attempts to have an ambiguous ending, but that the film actually offers no other viable answer to the film’s conclusion. The film has either revealed the killer, or it hasn’t.

Jim and Albert dig holes

Deke warns Jim that “it’s the little things that are important, Jimmy. It’s the little things that get you caught.” Aside from offering a connection to the film’s title, the line is significant because it is an embodiment of what has gotten both Deke and Jim to the points they are at by the film’s conclusion. Neither of them is in a better place than when the film started, nor is Albert. As lackluster as the film’s ending may seem, its ambiguousness, and the small twist it offers at the end is meant to frustrate its viewers.

Despite the famous names associated with the project, The Little Things didn’t quite hit the mark with a lot of critics. The performances given by the cast are among its highlights, as is the first half of the film that sets up the stakes that all the characters involved are dealing with. Even with those highlights, what makes The Little Things feel lackluster is the film’s second half. While the ambiguous ending leaves a lot of stones unturned, it fails to deliver on the intensity that the first half of the film spent so much time building up.

The Little Things is now streaming on HBO Max.

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