Suspenseful ‘Little Things’ has detectives lost in details
There’s always something satisfying about a pulpy thriller starring Denzel Washington. The Oscar-winning actor has an ability to elevate any run-of-the-mill genre piece, even one as slick and sophisticated as John Lee Hancock’s “The Little Things,” a sharp, suspenseful yet uneasy slice of neonoir set in the fall of 1990.
The magic Mr. Washington brings to a performance such as this, well, it’s in the little things: a stern glance, an easy grin, a tossedoff tag added to the end of a line.
In “The Little Things,” Mr. Washington is Joe Deacon, a rural deputy in Kern County, Calif., dispatched to Los Angeles to pick up a piece of evidence to pin a perp. When he arrives in LA, it’s clear this is his former home turf, the greetings both warm and wary. But a young detective, Jimmy Baxter (Rami Malek), is hungry for the legendary “Deke’s” insight into a troubling serial murder case, and he convinces him to head to a crime scene.
The blood-spattered apartment contains the body of a young woman, and Deke has a hunch it’s connected to an unsolved case from his past that continues to haunt him. As Jimmy will come to find out, Deke’s devotion to his cases tends toward the self-destructively obsessive. His almost religious devotion rubs off on hotshot detective Jimmy, as Deke shows him his unconventional approach to working a case.
“It’s the little things,” he repeats, urging him to pay attention to the details.
“The Little Things” boasts three Oscar-winning actors: Mr. Washington, Mr. Malek and Jared Leto, who costars as Albert Sparma, a suspect the duo of detectives zero in on. Mr. Leto gives an absolute howler of a performance, a high-camp characterization of Sparma as the ultimate weirdo crime perv. He’s a complete creep, but is he The Guy?