The Little Things was supposedly written back in 1993, before the likes of Seven even hit our screens. The end product feels like this script hasn't been touched since, not even the great Denzel could save what turned out to be a drab and tiresome experience.
Written by Elliot Lines
Starting with a scene where a woman is being chased by an mysterious driver, seemingly following and tracking her movements. With a slight conclusion to this ominous event, we are introduced to Joe Deacon (Denzel Washington), a former detective turned County State Officer, due to an unknown past occurrence. At this point he gets sent back to his old stomping ground, where he meets Jim Baxter (Rami Malek), a young hotshot detective on a missing persons case. After early altercations the two decide to team up to catch a serial killer, with no evidence and their only suspect being Albert Sparma (Jared Leto).
Starting promisingly, the first scene creates tension and intrigue by building towards the potential capture of this woman being stalked by a driver along the highway. Set in the 90's means that there was no easy contact, making this all the more frightening for anyone in this situation. But unfortunately this is where the suspense ends. For the remaining run time this becomes a drag, playing almost as a study of the detectives rather than chasing a case.
Throughout Denzel's character Deacon is struggling with some kind of trauma, you're almost expected to sympathise with him, but you never feel that connection. It's not until the end where you find out what has caused this, and this event still has no affect on the character whatsoever. Malek plays a stuck up, upcoming detective, which he plays well, but again there is no real depth to this character in which we are in the end meant to sympathise with.
A shining light to all this may be the imagery, which manages to capture the darker side of the 90's era. There seems to be a cloud hanging over everything, which adds to the ambiance and creates a darker mood throughout.
However, the story line pushed this to become a completely boring viewing experience that did in fact cause the eyes to become too heavy at one point. Even when you may think this will ramp up, it never manages to become anything of substance and concludes in a unsatisfying way.