Drop

48

This had the real feel of a COVID movie. That insular, all-in-one-set kind of slow boil that relies heavily on on-screen overlays and small-tech plot drivers. And employs a small cast that really focuses on one character and their point of view. Like that Ice Cube War of the Worlds movie that everyone loved so much. You know it when you see it. Now, I imagine Drop is better than that absolute p.o.s., but Meghann Fahy is an endlessly more gifted and engaging actor than most out there. Including the Cube. So, why not put her in this film, which is more one-hander than two-hander, but certainly employs a lot of screen time for Fahy as she looks concerned, worried, scared, defiant and relieved all in a film that is more like a stage play for our modern era. Because AirDrop is what’s on everyone’s tech lips these days. It’s not? It’s not.

All of which is weird because AirDrop is an Apple thing built into Apple phones. But this woman, Violet (Fahy), is clearly using some sort of Android phone. In which case the Internet tells me she would be using Android’s built-in short-range messaging system, Quick Share. Which would be fine except for the fact that the film hinges on a phone application called DigiDrop. Which — if we’re going on any sort of realism — would be an add-on application and not a built-in function of the phone. Unless we live in a world where all phones are either not Android, nor Apple, but some sort of universal platform that all phones used. Or, again, this DigiDrop thing is an add-on application and not part of the platform. Which would mean that the bad guy in this film, along with everyone else, would have to have that application downloaded and installed on their phones. Including Violet. And the dude sending her drops — or group of people sending her drops — would have to know and understand she had that app. Or know she had whatever phone she had. Which seems pretty far-fetched. So, we have to assume in this magical world there is only one universal phone platform with a built-in system akin to AirDrop or Quick Share that absolutely everyone has on their phone. Outside of that, the entire movie falls apart. Thanks for listening to my TIM Talk (because in this bizarro universe TED doesn’t exist either).

My seeming nit-pick aside, this film is actually quite entertaining. If not really goofy and pretty nonsensical. It definitely strives for a Hitchcock vibe. And, frankly, does feel like something he might do if he were alive in this day and age. After all, the man wasn’t above cheese and definitely loved a claustrophobic movie that feels a bit like a stage play. All of which apply to Drop. The movie works on ratcheting up tension over time. It starts with widow and single mother, Violet, on a first date with photographer, Henry (Brandon Sklenar), at some fancy restaurant at the top of a skyscraper in Chicago. As she waits for him to show up, we are introduced to all the characters in this restaurant in a really obvious way. Because, of course, they will all be suspects in what ensues. The Mad Dropper for lack of a better term. Cara the bartender. Phil the pianist. Connor the douche. And Richard, another guy on a first date and as nervous as she is about it. Yes, one of these people is the one who starts sending her increasingly threatening memes and eventually gets her try to kill her date by threatening her young son she’s left at home with her sister. Classic Hitchcock building of tension and paranoia. And, honestly, Fahy — playing mostly against a cell phone — does it well.

The thing is, the logic of the whole movie is kind of stupid. Putting aside the technological limitations, Violet leaves her date sitting at the table like a million times. And for some reason the dude sticks around. Granted, at some juncture she kisses him to keep him in the restaurant when he starts to either think that her hotness doesn’t trump her seeming craziness and says he should probably leave. He’s just too nice to be real. She seems completely insane. Because, of course, once she’s already told her date she’s getting these threatening messages sent to her, she is told the real game here is that the dropper needs her to steal something from her date, destroy it and then murder him. And if she tells him anything about this devious plan, her son will be killed. Lucky for us and her and the dropper there are cameras absolutely everywhere. In the restaurant, in her house, on the street. And all of them are completely clear, load quickly and never break up despite no camera system ever working like that. More fantastical nonsense. And, despite being threatened, she never figures out a way to borrow a phone or get a message to her sister to get herself and her son out of the house. And let’s talk about Henry for a sec. The man has some very important and incriminating evidence on him. Like in his camera bag. Apparently evidence he just gathered — to the point it’s still on the memory card in his camera. Yet he brings that evidence with him directly after gathering it to a date? This evidence that’s going to bring down a government. Just right there in his bag. And how did the bad guy know he was going to take said evidence with him on this date? To the point that they had access to the cameras in the restaurant somehow and bugged the whole joint and got a reservation for the dropper and set up a whole scheme — which includes telling Violet to get this memory card out of Henry’s camera… And how do I know he must have just taken these photos? Because he would have otherwise taken that card out at home, downloaded the photos and had copies on a computer somewhere. And how would the bad guy know the memory card was still in his camera? He wouldn’t. It’s nonsense. The whole timing of the setup and the ability for this whole scheme to be setup is nonsense.

But then we get that trope. A fight ensues in the restaurant. Checkov’s hockey puck comes into play and completely unrealistically breaks a window in the dining room. After which the whole place apparently becomes an airplane. We do know that buildings aren’t pressurized, right? So why, when a window is broken in a tall building does every dumb show creator just ignore the laws of physics and have our protagonist (and usually the antagonist) get sucked out the window as if we’re flying in a 747 at 30,000 feet? Sure, it looks cool. But it’s just more stupid. And then some gun play and then an ending that feels like it should be a shrugging, smiling freeze frame. Ultimately, this is mostly a goofy cartoon starring an actress who can hold the screen and do her version of pressure-cooker drama. If you turn off your brain and pretend that the laws of everything just don’t exist, it’s actually not the worst thing to happen in 2025. That prize for worst thing seems like it’s still sitting somewhere in the future.