The Little Things movie review: Denzel Washington dazzles in dreary ripoff of David Fincher's Se7en

The Little Things

Director - John Lee Hancock

Cast - Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto

Is there anything more mesmerising than the sight of Denzel Washington, slouching on the movie screen? He’s like a jazz performer; utterly unpredictable and always playful. Only Denzel, for instance, can break out a full-toothed grin at the sight of a dead body, and not immediately alienate the viewer.

In The Little Things, the latest dad-movie from director John Lee Hancock, Denzel plays disgraced former LASD detective Joe ‘Deke’ Deacon. Deke’s past is blurry, but it is implied through a series of flashbacks that things ended poorly for him after he became obsessed with catching a serial killer in Los Angeles.

Watch the Little Things trailer here

Years later, Deke is a sheriff’s deputy, performing menial tasks like collecting paperwork, and investigating petty crime. On one of his courier jobs, he’s sent back to his old stomping grounds, the homicide division in LA. There, he learns that another murder has been committed; the modus operandi seems very familiar. The killer is back on the prowl, and so is Deke.

So he takes a few vacation days and begins aiding the detective in charge on the down-low. Jimmy Baxter, played by Rami Malek, was Deke’s replacement, and is, in many ways, the department’s hottest new toy. It’s endlessly engaging to watch the brash young Jimmy's interactions with the considerably more cynical Joe, especially when you consider that the veteran sees himself in his more youthful counterpart.

Films like The Little Things, derivative as they may be of David Fincher’s Se7en, are enjoyable because they’re an endangered species. Hancock, however, has maintained that he wrote the first draft of The Little Things in 1993, before Andrew Kevin Walker wrote Se7en. Interestingly, Denzel passed on playing Detective Mills in that film. The part, of course, eventually went to Brad Pitt.

Here, he takes over the Morgan Freeman role. As Joe and Jimmy close in on a suspect, played by Jared Leto, their relationship becomes very similar to that of detectives Somerset and Mills in Fincher’s crime classic. There is even a meeting with Jimmy’s wife; although their meal isn’t interrupted by the sound of a passing train.

The similarities between the two films are far too obvious to completely ignore; and certainly, on more than one occasion, they hardly feel coincidental. But The Little Things never probes its characters with the sort of morbid glee that Fincher showed in his film — it is far more conventional in its approach.

Hancock, however, directs with unusual flair. His movie, unlike Se7en, is based in reality. Together with cinematographer John Schwartzman, Hancock captures the seediness of 90s Los Angeles with great skill. The Little Things isn’t the sort of LA noir movie that takes the viewer on a guided tour of Los Angeles and its tourist hotspots; it unfolds mostly on the streets of forgotten neighbourhoods, inside the confines of sketchy hotels, and along the corridors of unremarkable public offices.

This is the sort of movie that revels in scenes where very little happens; it isn’t in a rush to tell its story. Instead, it is more than happy to devote 15 minutes to a stakeout sequence which may or may not end fruitlessly.

And a large reason why we’re willing to engage with it is the central cast. Its trio of leads has four Oscars between them, one of which, admittedly, is missing. The owner of the missing Academy Award is Jared Leto. He plays the sort of incel creep whom you could imagine moonlighting as a mass-murdering clown in his spare time.

Leto is as good at playing maniacs as Denzel is at playing gruff heroes. And you can sense that the actor, who often goes to Christian Bale-lengths to realise his characters, went the extra mile this time, too. His Albert Sparma is a terrifying creature, not so much because of the sinister aura that he is perpetually surrounded by, but because he is smart. Sparma always seems to be one step ahead of the detectives, much like Kevin Spacey’s John Doe, from Se7en.

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I can’t imagine anyone who’d have even the slightest interest in watching The Little Things not having seen the Fincher film already. Which is a shame, because ultimately, even if Hancock wrote his film first, he will always be number two in cultural consciousness. Perhaps if he’d taken these last 25 years to rewrite his script — particularly the scenes that now resemble ripoffs — his film might have succeeded on its own merit. But as it stands, it can never shake the spectre of Se7en, which lurks, like Albert Sparma, behind every corner.

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The author tweets @RohanNaahar