Solid, straightforward, cerebral

JAMES Gandolfini (left) and Tom Hardy deftly play unlucky lowlifes.

Dennis Lehane is one of Hollywood’s go-to novelists for motion-picture adaptations. His books “Gone, Baby, Gone,” “Shutter Island” and “Mystic River” have all become critically acclaimed films, and Lehane’s favorite Boston setting remains a familiar one. “The Drop” is based on a Lehane short story that was later expanded into a novel and revisits that gritty kind of neighborhood, now reset in the badlands of Brooklyn.

Because his books feature characters torn between real-world choices, the screen adaptations tend to be quiet, tense, strongly performed ensemble films. “Mystic River” (2003) was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning acting trophies for Sean Penn and Tim Robbins. The acting in “The Drop” is, naturally, top-notch. Helmed by Belgian Michaël R. Roskam, an Academy Award-nominated director for his foreign language film “Bullhead” (2011), “The Drop” is a classic crime drama done in close quarters.

Bartender Bob Saginowski (Tom Hardy) works in Cousin Marv’s, a rundown bar that also functions as a drop for the Chechen mob’s money. The late James Gandolfini is the Marv in the bar’s name. While Bob saves an injured pit bull, he falls into the orbit of an enigmatic scarred woman named Nadia (Noomi Rapace). After a robbery at the bar, Bob is caught up in the police investigation as well as the Chechens’ own suspicions. But Bob has secrets, as do Marv and Nadia, and soon the bar is home to unexpected trouble.

Showcase

“The Drop” is a showcase for the British actor Hardy, best known for his turns as Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises,” Eames in “Inception” and a whole gaggle of rogues in crime thrillers like “Layer Cake.” He is really, really good at playing charismatic lowlifes, and his Bob, mealy-mouth accent and all, is a quietly tormented man who must face his past as well as act on his instincts when things start to go wrong. He is not what he seems to be. Swedish actress Rapace (“Prometheus”) brings a wary energy to the mysterious Nadia, a very unlikely femme fatale. Gandolfini, who famously played a crime boss in his most famous role as Tony Soprano in HBO’s “The Sopranos,” plays a thoroughly different criminal here.

Weary of this small-time life and yet somewhat avuncular to Bob, Gandolfini’s tightly wound Marv is both fearful and resentful of his mob bosses. He’s a dangerous man because he feels he has no more choices but bad ones. All three of them are excellent as people who seek to escape a life they’re hopelessly trapped in. Or are they?

Old-fashioned

It doesn’t show that this is Roskam’s first Hollywood film; he lets “The Drop’s” pieces fall into place carefully and purposefully. With its slow-burn narrative, this is a remarkably old-fashioned film with solid fundamental elements. It goes around seething quietly and then suddenly gets profane and violent; it’s rated R-16. Lehane, who wrote the screenplay, delivers a coil-and-spring character study that is rewarded with good performances all around.

We’ll be seeing more of Lehane’s stuff soon. Ben Affleck, who directed “Gone, Baby, Gone” will be adapting Lehane’s 2012 Prohibition-era novel “Live By Night.” Lehane’s current film works as a dramatic study of the psychology of unlucky people. “The Drop” is solid, straightforward and cerebral entertainment with great acting work. There will always be a place for this kind of movie and James Gandolfini could not have found a better-fitting final film.

20th Century Fox’s “The Drop” is now showing in cinemas.