The Drop (15)

There is a point some 20 minutes into The Drop when Noomi Rapace turns to Tom Hardy and says "be patient" - and already you're not sure if she's talking to him or issuing a plea to the audience.

Because while this film may be being billed as a thriller, it also wants to be a black comedy - and it takes forever to get anywhere close to either.

Which is frankly criminal when you've got a cast this good (Hardy and Rapace are joined by the late James Gandolfini in what turned out to be his final film role).

The story is a simple one - it's about a man and his dog, rescued from a bin (trash can if you speak American).

It's also about robbery and crime, communities and their secrets, people looking out for themselves, family, relationships a weirdo in a hat and a religious cop who may or may not be good at his job.

Like I said, simple.

Oh, and the title comes from gang bosses picking a different bar each night for everyone to drop off their dirty money so it can go get laundered. Don't worry, it's all explained in a handy voice-over at the start.

On the face of it, it should work - but somewhere along the way director Michael R Roskam (making only his second full-length feature following the critical success of Bullhead) lost sight of what he was trying to achieve.

The characters are - with the possible exception of Hardy's Bob - all cliche's you've seen in so many other films they blur into one, while the dialogue comes straight from The Big Book Of Mafia-Type Movies.

The result is top class actors delivering lines they can't quite believe and playing out scenes they're not quite sure they understand.

And then there's the pace of the damn thing.

To be a thriller, it needs to move much quicker, and have different speeds, not just cruise along in second gear.

And yes, I understand that the dog is more than a dog, but do we really need to spend so much time using it to set up Bob's relationship with Rapace's Nadia?

No, thought not.

Hell, I've spend less time in pet shops and I've got three (or four, I lose count) of the bloody things. And cats.

And why did we suddenly go all Oceans 11 during the Super Bowl night drop? It was like we suddenly stepped into a totally different film for 10 minutes.

I wouldn't have minded, but it was actually worse than the one we left.

So, a thriller that doesn't thrill, or a black comedy lacking laughs?

Well, it's both - in the final 20 minutes.

The explosive conclusion will make you jump, have you at least mildly gripped, and certainly produce some chuckles.

It's just criminal that it took so long to get there.

Danny Wossisface on Film 2014 said this was a fitting end to Gandolfini's career. It's not. He was better in Enough Said and In The Loop for a start, and they're both far better films.

Others have called it gripping. It's not.

What it is is some interesting scenes thrown together in a slipshod manner, building quite by accident to an enjoyable conclusion that would have been equally as enjoyable without the preceding 90 minutes of ho-humery.

Good looking dog though.