Leaving uneasy after seeing The Drop, I looked down and noticed red ink had stained my hands like the bloodguilt the hero (and I) had experienced. None of it would wash off!
Where are the movies with protagonists we can emulate? Does everything have to be so dark and bleak? Where are the positive messages? Certainly there should be places for both condonable and condemnable protagonists, but we have neglected one for the other. Director Michael R. Roskam’s film conforms with the current trend of morally dark protagonists that have taken hold of mainstream and art-house films.
Bob (Tom Hardy) is a bartender for a Chechen mob owned establishment that is used for laundering money. Our hero is isolated, lonely, and guilt ridden. He goes to church every day but never takes communion. He lives alone without any family and becomes wrapped up in a stray, abused dog that he finds in a trash can. I instantly felt for this man.
Evidently, some gruesome burden weighed on his conscience. His enigmatic nature is cryptic and difficult to read. Once we discover his motivation, his past, and his thinking, we realize we have been tricked into empathising with evil. When the shift in perspective comes in the third act, Bob is no longer a hero but precisely the opposite. However, the film’s tone never seems to shift with the new found knowledge. The closing shot is a kind of happily-ever-after visual that hints at something redemptive without the protagonist ever needing to change. I was repulsed.
Such a character would have been inconceivable during the reign of the Hayes code in the Hollywood studio system during the 1920s. This form of voluntary censorship (although surrounding pressures made it coercive) was put into place for the movie industry to regain its moral standing after a few celebrity scandals at the time. Movies coming under this code were positive and focused on good, moral members of society. Admittedly, the Hayes code had some morally questionable flaws: the inability to critique the clergy or the banishment of on-screen interracial relationships. Censorship is never the answer.
However, the ‘free speech’ state of filmmaking today has swung us the other way. We revel in this kind of darkness and have become desensitised to evil. Hollywood is just there to supply the demand. In the 20’s that meant primarily making safe and inoffensive films with messages strongly influenced by the Christian community; now it means more movies like The Drop.
None of this is to say that Roskam has made a bad film. It’s alright. The Drop is technically proficient and competent, but its storytelling utilises a laborious pace. It is painfully mediocre despite the best efforts of the A-list cast — James Gandolfini as the ex-owner of the bar who now works for the Chechens, and Noomi Rapace as the woman whom Bob befriends to help him take care of the stray dog.
The blameless Hollywood hero is dead and I have killed him; we have killed him. The blood is on all of our hands and until there is a societal shift, like Bob, we will be unable to wash away the guilt.
