A widowed mother’s first date in years takes a terrifying turn when she’s bombarded with anonymous threatening messages on her phone during their upscale dinner, leaving her questioning if her charming date is behind the harassment.
Chuck says:
Ill-conceived and in your face, Christopher Landon’s “Drop” takes a simple premise and runs it into the ground, taking what could have been a clever exercise in suspense, only to deliver a ridiculous thriller that jumps the rails in spectacular fashion. Overwhelmed by unnecessary camera moves and lighting cues, the director can’t get out of his own way. Lacking faith in the material and the audience, Landon makes us aware of his presence throughout, a distraction that only exacerbates the script’s flaws.
In a sense, the script by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach owes a debt to Agatha Christie drawing room mysteries. Our heroine, Violet (Meghann Fahy) finds herself in a single location, tormented by an assailant she doesn’t know, the bulk of the movie spent trying to identify him. The set up is a first date with Henry (Brandon Sklenar, self-consciously cool to distraction), a photographer who’s arranged a dinner to remember, in a high-rise, high-class restaurant, some 40 stories above the streets of Chicago. He’s aiming to impress.
Unfortunately, this is all doomed for failure as Violet begins getting airdrops on her phone, which she initially ignores. However, as they become more frequent and threatening, she realizes they’re no joke. Told to access the cameras of her home security system, she sees a would-be assailant lurking outside and is informed her sister and son will be killed unless she does as she’s told.
A handy explanation from Henry informs us that whoever is messaging Violet is in the restaurant, no further than 50 feet away at any given time. After which, the guessing game begins as to who the techno-terrorist is, of which there are plenty of candidates. As to what the mystery person wants Violet to do, it involves murdering a patron in the restaurant, thus prompting a moral quandary. Kill a stranger or let her son and sister be killed?
The various ways in which Violet buys time range from inspired to ridiculous, but to Landon’s credit, he does keep the action moving. Yet, there are plenty of distractions as well that keep the viewer from investing fully in the film. Increasingly large copies of the messages dropped on Violet’s phone are placed in various parts of the frame, each obtrusive and off-putting while moments in which glaring lighting is used to highlight certain characters are unnecessary and come off as amateurish.
For movies like this to succeed, they may be told at a breakneck pace, in order to prevent the viewer from seeing or caring about the holes in its plot. Unfortunately, the pace lags in the third act, the story becoming so ridiculous, it proves insulting. To Jacobs and Roach’s credit, the big reveal regarding who is tormenting Violet and why, is clever. As such, the film seems to be on firm footing to deliver a rousing, inspired climax. But things go spectacularly wrong during the last 15 minutes, the improbability of all that occurs insulting, the outcome infuriating rather than thrilling.
Ultimately, what’s most offensive is the way the filmmakers treat the issue of domestic violence. A prologue showing Violet barely surviving a horrific incident involving her ex-husband, is presented in such an overwrought manner, it proves insincere. When it’s referenced to later, it serves as a convenient plot point, nothing else. The issue isn’t dealt with the respect it and its survivors deserve. Because of this, as well as the idiotic way in which the story concludes, “Drop” left a bad taste in my mouth, one cleansed by rewatching Netflix’s “Carry on,” which covers much of the same ground with greater intelligence and skill.
2 Stars
