Too many reviews of late have been prefaced by noting that the film marks the final performance of a talent prematurely snatched from us, and The Drop is that very movie for the brilliant James Gandolfini.
While Enough Said was an indelible reminder of his lighter side, this superior genre flick finds him silently moving through the gears, passing the baton to Tom Hardy, an actor with a similarly intimidating presence bubbling beneath a hulking great surface.
It’s a fitting epitaph, as well as being one of a number of recent adult films (Gone Girl, A Most Wanted Man) released among a slew of movies cynically aimed at particular demographics by committee.
The establishment of the title is a bar formerly owned by Cousin Marv (Gandolfini), a one-time power player on the Brooklyn streets who relinquished ownership when Chechen crime lords moved into the neighbourhood.
