A One Mann’s Movies review of “Drop” (2025).
“Drop” is a bit of a B-movie, but for most of its running time it’s quite an interesting B-movie. It just goes and bolts on 10 minutes of a Michael Bay film at the back-end and undoes much of its good work.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“Drop” Plot:
Widowed mother Violet (Meghann Fahy) leaves her young son Toby (a cute Jacob Robinson) at home with her sister Jen (Violett Beane) to go on a long overdue date. She is to meet Henry (Brandon Sklenar) at a posh high-rise restaurant. But as the date progresses she gets an increasingly worrying set of ‘Drop’ messages on her phone from someone else within the restaurant.
Certification:
UK:Â 15;Â US: PG-13. (From the BBFC web site: “Strong threat, violence, domestic abuse references, suicide references”. Given the violent scene of marital abuse at the beginning of the film, I’m really surprised this only got a PG-13 rating by the MPAA.)
Talent:
Starring: Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, Jacob Robinson, Reed Diamond, Gabrielle Ryan, Jeffery Self.
Directed by: Christopher Landon.
Written by: Jillian Jacobs & Chris Roach.
Running Time: 1h 35m.
“Drop” Summary:
Positives:
- A neat premise that adds a Hitchcockian level of intrigue to the story.
- Clever use of graphics.
Negatives:
- The final ten minutes comes from a completely different film altogether and the tonal change is jarring.
- The opening marital abuse scene – somewhat unnecessary to the plot – will be upsetting to many women.
Review of “Drop”:
Who the hell is it?
Where the film succeeds is in ramping up the paranoia as to who is stalking Violet and asking her to do the terrible things demanded of her (spoiled by the trailer but which I won’t repeat here). It’s truly a terrible date! Violet is constantly leaving Henry at the table to go to the loo or make a phone call and he, not unreasonably, wonders if it’s all worth it! (It’s enough to make any polite Englishman squirm!) In all of this time, you are constantly wondering who is the antagonist. Various individuals are suspects. I even ended up suspecting (somehow) Henry himself. It’s a good script in that regard and a tad Hitchcockian in its paranoia: Fahy could definitely be one of Hitchcock’s blonde femme fatales. (Mark Kermode has more likened it to a Brian DePalma film, which I can also see).
Clever graphics.
In all too many of these types of films, you as the viewer are expected to have 20:20 vision to be able to see text on a briefly glimpsed phone screen. Thankfully, not here…. the text breaks the fourth wall, as it were, and appears in different guises on the backgrounds in a font size that even I can read! There is even a clever section where the tiles in the toilet cubicle turn into a patchwork of Violet’s home security camera outputs.
Acting
Rather emphasising the B-movie nature of the piece, the acting I found to be somewhat variable. Meghann Fahy (Daphne Sullivan in Season 2 of “The White Lotus”) is actually very good and the relationship with her bratty younger sister Jen (Violett Beane) is well portrayed by the two actresses. Elsewhere, the performances were either a bit wooden or, in the case of Jeffery Self as Matt, the waiter, very much over the top. I’m sorry, but for me Matt comes off as one of the most annoying characters in film so far this year!
But then it goes off the rails.
After 70 minutes of tension building, the film suddenly takes a sharp right turn and loses the plot. It suddenly turns into a Michael Bay film (Bay is actually one of the producers). We have a “Die Hard” moment followed by a frenetic Home Invasion battle with an element of “Home Alone” thrown into the mix. It’s so jarringly different that I didn’t like it at all. I was looking for a much cleverer exit strategy than this.
Marital abuse.
The film opens with a quite horrifyingly violent incident of marital abuse which makes me glad I didn’t take the Illustrious Mrs Movie Man to see the film (she reacts very negatively to such scenes). There are flashbacks to the scene during the rest of the film to reveal how it resolved and then we return to the same themes in the violent conclusion by way of closing the loop.
Triggers
As above, the scenes of marital abuse might be very triggering for some viewers.
Summary Thoughts on “Drop”
A film that tonally doesn’t seem to be sure what it’s going for. When it is suspensful and intriguing it is quite good, but then it screws the landing. It remains quite a fun popcorn movie though.
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “Drop”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=velbBGmAXZk.
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