The Little Things – Review

California, October 1990: A girl driving along a dark highway rocks out to pop tunes zooming along on her road trip. Suddenly, she is harassed by another vehicle, tailgating her, speeding into the lane next to her, zooming ahead only to stop and let her pass…

She stops at the small gas station, hoping to get the attention of anyone. It is possibly vacant. She runs into the dark desert as her stalker follows, which is not a good move for her, and an ominous start to the film.

Cut to a small-town Kern County Sheriff Deputy Joe “Deke” Deacon (Washington) who gets an assignment to deal with an old robbery suspect. A new source of evidence from another crime has popped up. He drives into L.A. to pick up seized evidence at the lab. However, the tech needs a homicide detective signature to release it. Some re-testing is also needed.

Ultimately, this keeps Deke in town overnight as he waits to take his needed evidence home. In the L.A.P.D. offices at the same time, there have been 4 homicides with no suspects and a press conference does not give the public much confidence. Deke’s past history and ties to L.A. and the local officers like Detective Sal Rizoli (Bauer) gives him company for the night talking over cases.

A younger officer Jim Baxter (Malek) is in charge of the recent murders and catches wind of Deke, who has a strong reputation from his past time as a local detective. He asks Deke for pointers and they hit a murder scene. Maybe there are even similarities to an old case.

This is a good setup to an investigatory murder mystery. It has a great cast and mood, however does not quite distinguish itself from the crowd when it comes to serial killer affair, and has some interesting revelations by the end. The script is… fine. The characters are okay and flawed, and the overall investigation is not bad. Buuuut, it remains a somewhat frustrating result for me, mostly all due to the writing.

There is some creep factor and unpleasant suspects, while the proof of guilt remains just out of grasp which pushes the police into new tactics. While these are all great elements, the final story points may leave viewers frustrated a bit. It’s pretty challenging to talk about my gripes since they are mostly all related to end-game informational reveals, but I don’t love all the script choices. It makes it hard to know what the story is really saying since there are a few strong themes throughout, which morph a bit into something else by the resolution.

Denzel saves the film, and the surrounding cast bring the so-so story up to a higher level. If you are looking to sink into some dark murder investigations, you could do worse. There is a lot to like here, just be prepared for middle-ground story results which are competently acted and directed. I wanted to like this more.