LOTS OF SPOILERS I really want to make a review about a movie I really enjoyed, I really do! Unfortunately, this just wasn't it. It's not that it's out and out *bad*, but it's so *bland*! Denzel Washington is a police officer who has moved to the sticks (Bakersfield, LOL) after having accidentally shot someone during a serial killer case. We are teased with why he left throughout most of the movie, and when you actually find out it's because he shot a woman, you're like, "what"? His wife left him and he had a triple bypass for that? What does that have to do with us being led to believe he was working himself to death trying to solve an insolvable case? He wasn't working himself to death over a case he couldn't solve, he was traumatized because he shot the wrong person in the dark! That had NOTHING to do with what the whole plot of the movie was supposed to be!

Anyway, he was paired with a new detective Rami Malek who I LOVE, but who was so miscast in this role it was shocking. LOL, he was supposed to be a new fish detective, but then we meet his family and he's married in a nice house with two daughters the older of which looked to be in the fourth grade or so - that's not what one would expect to see in a "new" detective's life. A stable family with school aged children? A nice house with a pool? The man has been "on the job" for awhile now, not fresh out of college! The main trouble with Malek though is that he just did NOT fit his role. I can't think of any lines or actions of his that made me believe he really was a detective. I'd think just watching "Law and Order" reruns would give him more insight in to his role, but he just performed poorly. Also, we had scene after scene of him brooding over the case. Why? Denzel had good reason to brood on the case as he shot an innocent woman the last time this killer was active, what is Malek's reason? Who knows? They didn't show or tell us.

And that leads in to the part that *really* bothered me. The title of the movie is, "the little things". Denzel tells Malek that it's "the little things" that are important in cracking a case. So you pay attention to the movie waiting to see "the little things" that are later going to be important.... and there aren't any. Ever. The ONLY thing Denzel does that no one else thought of is go across the street from one of the dead women's apartments to an empty building with chair in it and deduce the killer might have watched her from there. Wow, dramatic. Then Malek says, "I never would have thought of that" and you have to wonder what he does all day to earn his paycheck. And that's it for "the little things" for the whole movie. And just when you come to terms with the fact that there are NEVER going to be real clues in the movie they have Denzel break into their suspect's apartment and search the place! Now this may not have occurred to the producers, but *breaking and entering and illegally searching a suspect's house is NOT solving a crime by finding "the little things" the killer missed, it's solving one crime by having the police commit another*! And even after that they STILL didn't solve the crime! They NEVER solved the crime. The end of the movie comes when Rami bashes their suspect's head in and we never know if he was the killer or not. probably not, though, given the way they were pushing the narrative. I suppose we'll find out in the even worse sequel when someone notices one MORE "little thing" - that is the real killer is continuing to kill women in exactly the same fashion.

Pretty disappointing.

As a side note, my husband got really worked up about the suspects supposedly old 400,000 mile Chevy Nova for having a ding-free body and nice but "dirty" paint. Near the end of the movie they eventually show it up on blocks with the tires off and for those who were paying attention it apparently has spotless disk brakes on both the front and rear axles. He points out that there's no way that was stock, they may have had disks on the front, but the rears would have been drum brakes, and that was quite upsetting, passing something off as stock that clearly wasn't. IMO what that means is that someone in Hollywood wanted to rebuild their classic car on the studio's dime, and so what? It has nothing to do with the movie's plot. Apparently though, it is pretty offensive to the people who care about those things. Or, I suppose what's more likely is that he was just bored with the movie and decided to take out his anger on whoever made the car. In any event, "no rear disks brakes on old Novas", check.