It’s a lot of little things that makes this movie difficult to watch.

Score: 2/5

How do I talk about my thoughts on The Little Things? I guess to start, I’ll help you understand why I am opening with a question. Have you ever watched a movie or a TV show, or even read a book where, while you are experiencing it, you begin to understand that this feels very similar to “X” example? And then your second thought is that X was so good; why isn’t this? Well, that’s kind of the feeling I have with this movie, and I’m struggling to express my thoughts fully without first giving you that background. I have watched plenty of crime/drama/thrillers in my life, and those prior experiences make this movie feel lesser than what I’m sure someone fresh to the genre may find as a decent, if not good, starting point.

Me though? I can’t say I was a huge fan. This is all the more difficult for me since the three leads of this movie are fun to watch. Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto, these are all Academy Award winning actors. They are in a genre that suits their talents, and they are playing roles that fit them well, but damn it, this movie falls flat for me.

The general premise of The Little Things is Rami Malek’s Jim Baxter is leading a case to find a murderer who is killing young women in very specific ways. This is a serial killer with a pattern. Washington’s Joe Deacon is a washed-up former detective who once had Baxter’s exact position. Something went wrong, though, and it destroyed his life to where all he has are cases and the inability to let it go. This pair latch onto Leto’s Albert Sparma, a creepy guy who fits the bill of the murderer. Thus begins a story of trying to prove that the slimeball did it. Yet, simultaneously, the film compares the two lawmen, showing what happens to someone who lets his job consume him and someone just starting to fall down that path. Both of these stories have promise and could be an exciting journey. The problem is that it’s not very satisfying when they come to a head in the end.

I’m convinced that this film’s conclusion could have worked if given several more hours. But it also could have simply been a structural problem. The film provides more of a spotlight on Washington’s Baxter, but it’s Malek’s character that transforms significantly. It might have felt more consequential if we had been given more time with him. Instead, its focus on following an already relatively ruined man doesn’t work well unless the mystery leads to a conclusion that gives him something he didn’t have before. This film doesn’t do that.

Stepping away from the heart of what makes this thing tick, I still have to give it to the trio of leads. They are still entertaining to watch. Yet, at times, Washington’s character had mannerisms that misled me to an unsatisfying conclusion by the film’s end. It’s like he was trying to will a more exciting story for his character that never got the onscreen moment to confirm it.

All this is to say, somewhere, there is a great crime mini-series these three actors could have been a part of. Instead, The Little Things is a movie with missed potential that left me disappointed and thinking about wanting to go and watch HBO’s True Detective again.