One can imagine the logline for the new thriller DROP…
A widowed mother is ordered by a cellphone hacker to kill the man she’s on a first date with at an upscale restaurant and if she doesn’t, her young son at home will be killed instead.”
Pretty compelling stuff. No wonder the script by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach got greenlit. Unfortunately, director Christopher Landon decided the way to direct much material was to over-direct it. Landon is a successful horror screenwriter (mostly the sub-par PARANORMAL ACTIVITY sequels, but also the clever HEART EYES just two months ago), and did a superb job directing HAPPY DEATH DAY, but with this one, he’s made what should be a taut thriller into an overwrought exercise in excess. He should’ve asked for another rewrite of the script too, all the better to smooth over some dumb excesses in the plotting as well. It all makes for a frustrating time at the movies as such wrong moves keep bungling the fun to be had.
Landon’s excesses as a director start with the opening scene where protagonist Violet (Meghann Fahy) is being so thoroughly kicked around by her abusive husband it plays as utterly unseemly. Did Landon really have to show her being beaten to a pulp and tossed about like a rag doll? He adds insult to all those injuries by dragging out the drama too long as well until you’re wondering if the editor went for an extended coffee break during the scene. The anguish finally ends, but it really doesn’t, as the resolution of Violet’s violent situation stops short of showing what she does to save herself and toddler Toby in his crib.
The story flashes forward to several years later where Violet has a successful practice working as a psychologist specializing in helping female patients who have been in abusive relationships. (A bit too on-the-nose, but not detrimental.) Violet is thriving with a gorgeous, multilevel home, her happy five-year-old Toby (Jacob Robinson), and bestie sis Jen (Violett Beane) at her disposal to babysit. Jen even gives sartorial advice as Violet dresses for the first date since that horrific night those many years ago.
Violet arrives for her date at a skyscraper restaurant called Palate, dressed to kill, and that’s a good thing as in no time, she’s going be asked to do so regarding her date. Here, Landon does a good job of setting up the tony establishment, its layout, and a few of the folks that Violet will encounter before sitting down to dinner with her late-arriving date. Amongst those she meets are a friendly bartender, a coolly sufficient hostess, and chatty single Richard (Reed Diamond) who mistakes Violet for his blind date. Soon enough, Violet’s date Henry arrives, and as played by Brandon Sklenar, he’s too good to be true for a singles dating app. The man is ridiculously handsome, fit, kind, empathetic, and successful. Henry never feels entirely real because of such attributes, and it would’ve behooved the screenwriters to give him something resembling a quirk or flaw just to make him less perfect.
Soon enough though, Violet is contacted via her iPhone’s AirDrop feature, hence the title, with a host of real time tasks from a hacker that she must complete in the restaurant that help bring upon the doom for her date. If she doesn’t follow them to the letter, the hacker’s partner-in-crime will kill her sis and child in her home while she’s at Palate. Eventually, she’s asked to poison her date, but the audience could easily see that coming from a mile away. The director doesn’t help matters by milking every task well beyond reasonable tension points. Landon also throws in a lot of slick camera angles and fancy supers showcasing the texts that feel like he’s showing off. What it really demonstrates is the director’s lack of focus or faith in the material to let the story be scary enough on its own.
It also doesn’t help that Violet never seems to be as quick-witted or as savvy as she should be. Wby couldn’t she be smarter like Walter Matthau’s transit cop dealing with subway hijackers in THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 or Jimmy Stewart’s wheelchair-bound photographer playing cat & mouse so cleverly with the killer across the courtyard in REAR WINDOW? Fahy’s Violet is undone throughout – sweating, trembling, craning her neck everywhere, staring at everyone – she acts more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The fun of DROP needs her to rise to the occasion better, far faster than when it happens in the third act, and to even achieve some sort of real victories for herself and her situation while she’s being ordered about. Instead, the script strains credulity, with Violet taking forever to get her shit together, even for a potboiler like this. And the over-direction from Landon just gilds that lily. Even in the third act, he refuses to move things along. Instead, he drags out the confession of the restaurant’s perp, the ensuing climactic battle, and the violence against women as well. It’s excessive, and by that point, little more than ridiculous.
DROP needed to move faster, be smarter, and play as much more frightening. Instead, Landon, et al. drain the tension by overdoing the gloss, the pacing, and the violence. He clearly believes that more is more, but his bad judgment makes the film go down like little more than empty calories.
