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From director Christopher Landon (the Happy Death Day films, Freaky) and screenwriters Jillian Jacobs (Fantasy Island) and Chris Roach (Non-Stop), Drop is a mystery thriller that gets more wrapped up in a forced mystery than providing anything resembling actual thrills. Violet (Meghann Fahy) is a widow and a domestic abuse survivor. She has prioritized her son for so long that she’s forgotten what it’s like to try to meet someone. After using a dating app and finding someone she felt like there was a connection with, Violet agrees to meet up with Henry (Brandon Sklenar) the guy she’s been talking to for a first date. The date starts decent enough, but Violent begins getting strange memes AirDropped to her iPhone. She ignores them at first, but the sender (we’re going to refer to them as The Dropper) soon reveals that they know her name and that a masked intruder is inside her house threatening to harm her younger sister Jen (Violett Beane) and kill her son if she tells anyone about her situation. For a cast of mostly recognizable actors, Drop features some fairly solid performances. Meghann Fahy is understandably on the verge of tears throughout the film, but she hides it well. She is bombarded with texts that force her to do despicable things, but she has to pretend she’s having a good time. Brandon Sklenar comes off as a good guy with a questionable career choice. He’s a photographer working for the mayor and his kind demeanor could be misleading. Like Meghann Fahy, Sklenar’s performance resides in his eyes, which are always seemingly full of genuine concern. The film has a crazy final ten minutes. Drop mostly takes place in this fancy and wildly expensive restaurant called Palate located several stories up for some ungodly reason. Violet is forced to stay at the restaurant, so most of the film takes place at the bar, at their table, or in the bathroom. The finale allows everything to hit the fan as people get shot and thrown out windows, the intruder finally goes after Violet’s sister and son, and everything comes full circle from the beginning of the film which touches on the abuse Violet went through both physically and metaphorically. The rest of Drop is a repetitious drag. The film attempts to submerge the audience in a sea of intrigue throwing various other people at the restaurant into the mix who could be The Dropper. The film mentions that someone has to be within 50 feet to send an AirDrop and there are at least half a dozen people Violet encounters that evening that could be the culprit including a somewhat flirty female bartender, a guy Violet bumps into several times because neither of them can stop looking at their phones, a middle-aged guy who is on the first date he’s had in years and is total cringe, and their flamboyant waiter who is just trying to survive his first day on the job. Violet breaks a lot of boundaries and raises a ton of red flags for a first date. The fact that Henry sticks it out throughout the whole film is a miracle. The Dropper forces Violet to do a lot of things she doesn’t want to do like go after the memory card in Henry’s camera and attempt to kill Henry. But she also acts like a crazy person by lying constantly and getting caught later, switching tables and then switching back, and is always on her phone. The problem with Drop is you’re never invested in who The Dropper is. It’s a whodunit film where you don’t care who did it and you care even less after you know who it is. The trailer made it seem like there would be more of the intruder doing unspeakable things at Violet’s home, but the film is largely driven by Violet texting on her phone and aimlessly wandering around Palate because The Dropper is a dick. Drop overreaches and stretches out an enigmatic game of duck duck goose far beyond its limitations. The performances are surprisingly strong and the ending is downright bananas. But a film driven by distressing text messages and wealthy buffoons acting strangely at a fancy restaurant will only get a film so far.

<em>'Drop'</em> is a great thriller! I was hooked for every minute. It gave me vibes of 2024's <em>'Carry-On'</em>, which is a film I also enjoyed. This one - albeit certainly different - has similarities, but it is much more atmospheric. It left me on fair tenterhooks, that's for sure. The performances are excellent, particularly from leads Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar. In the midst of the drama, there is actually a pretty solid romance in there featuring those two; they share terrific chemistry, despite also giving the necessary edge of first date awkwardness. I enjoyed how the film portrayed the messaging, each one is shown onscreen in a clear but not in an in-your-face or an eyesore-y manner; the font/effects fitted with the ambience that the film was setting up. It takes a basic plot device and impressively creates a mountain of thrill.

“Violet” (Meghann Fahy) hasn’t been on a date for years, since her husband died and left her to bring up their young son “Toby” (Jacob Robinson) on her own. Tonight’s the night, though, and so having been talked out of wearing a deckchair by her sister “Jen” (Violett Beane) she sets off to a rooftop restaurant for a rendezvous with her hunky online pal “Henry” (Brandon Sklenar). Things don’t go so well for her as no sooner has she sat down than she starts to get dodgy text messages, then her (extensive) home security system shows there to be a black-clad gent in her living room and he isn’t there to deliver the Milk Tray! Over the course of this increasingly perilous date, she is being given instructions that involve her in a cunning scheme to dispose of her new friend and of some damning evidence - but who is pulling the strings and can she possibly thwart their plan before disaster strikes her son, sister and/or poor bemused “Henry? It’s entirely far-fetched this film, but for a change there’s actually a certain degree of jeopardy as she and we try to work out just what’s going on in this big brother house with cutlery. It’s a sort of game of “Cluedo” but is it the waiter, the barkeep, the piano player, the lone diner, the blind date couple having a meet from hell? Is it even her date himself? What is the big secret? It’s peppered with snippets of a back story that becomes just a little more useful as we progress and though the ending isn’t the best, this is still quite a decently paced, occasionally cringe-making, drama that works quite well for ninety minutes and tells me all I need to know about eating panna cotta at altitude.