The Drop Review - 3 Stars

“The Drop” reminds me of the great gritty Film Noir crime pictures of the 1940’s.  Tom Hardy plays a quiet bartender working for his cousin James Gandolfini, who once owned the joint but lost it to the Russian mob.   Now, among other things, the mob uses the bar to stash various piles of dirty money.  One night two punks come in and rob the joint.  The mob doesn’t like that.  Gandolfini, in his final film performance, knows he’s under the gun and on the line for the missing money.  Meanwhile, Hardy, on a walk home, saves a pit bull puppy he finds in Noomi Repace’s garbage.  They strike up a tenuous friendship angering her ex boyfriend.  The story takes place in pre gentrified Brooklyn, when neighborhoods including dying churches, overly friendly policemen and really bad guys.  Tom Hardy won a lot of praise early this summer for “Locke” in which he holds our attention while driving a car and talking on the phone for ninety minutes.  He’s equally as good in “The Drop” thanks in part to an excellent script by Dennis Lehane of “Gone Baby Gone” and “Mystic River.”  Hardy makes a blind side plot twist believable and makes “The Drop” a gritty classic.  Does it deliver what it promises?  Mean streets crime drama.  Is it entertaining?  Great acting with a twist.  Is it worth the price of admission?  For sure.