Drop

by Hope Madden

The thing about Drop, Christopher Landon’s new first date thriller, is that we’ve seen it before. Maybe not this exact scenario, but the idea. Go all the way back to 2002’s Phone Booth, when Joel Schumacher and a self-righteous sniper trapped Colin Farrell on a pay phone. Or back to 2014 and Drop co-writer Chris Roach’s extortion-by-text-in-the-sky thriller, Non-Stop.

The point has always been that, via our technology, we’re helplessly surveilled and those watching can pull strings we don’t want pulled. It can be effective because it mines our collective reality. And Landon and a game cast keep the cat-and-mouse antics about as believable as they can be.

Meghann Fahy (The Unbreakable Boy, White Lotus) is Violet, a single mom out on her first date since the death of her abusive husband. She leaves her precocious 5-year-old Toby (bespectacled Irish internet sensation Jacob Robinson) at home with her sister (Violett Beane) and heads to a downtown Chicago high rise for a pricy dinner with too-good-to-be-true Henry (Brandon Sklenar).

But before she can even taste that calamari appetizer, Violet’s phone starts pinging with messages, including a command to check her home security footage. If Violet doesn’t kill Henry, the masked man in her living room will kill Toby.

Landon (Freaky, Happy Death Day, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse) has a strong track record with horror comedies, but Drop is not really either. It’s a tidy thriller, and though Landon’s instinct for humor gives the first date banter a charming quality, he can’t quite direct his way out of the script’s physical limitations and storytelling contrivance.

Almost, though. Landon gives the penthouse eatery a dizzying fishbowl quality. Between savvy editing and the cast’s commitment, tensions rise with gamesmanship that usually feels fairly authentic.

But then, a dramatic convenience reminds you that this is a movie, and that no human would react as the character is reacting if, indeed, a gun was pointed at their 5-year-old.

Still, Drop exceeds low expectations mainly on the charisma of the cast and two universal fears: technology and first dates.