The Drop starring James Gandolfini and Tom Hardy is based on Dennis Lehane's short story Animal Rescue

You can't miss the commercials for The Drop but I completely missed the fact that the film was based on a book. Okay, not exactly a book, but a piece of fiction. A short story by  Dennis Lehane who wrote the script based on his own Animal Rescue which appears in the Dennis Lehane edited collection Boston Noir. 

And don't be confused by the sudden appearance of The Drop in your local bookstore. It's not a new novel from Lehane, it's a novelization based on the film. The whole concept of novelizations isn't one I care much for but I suppose if it's the author novelizing a screenplay based on his own short story it doesn't quite reach the same level of ticky tack. But really, Mister Lehane, you need the additional bucks that badly??

The movie hits your local theater September 12. While The Drop has a terrific cast including Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Mattias Schoenhart, the movie is also notable because it's James Gandolfini's final film. (I'm saddened at just how often I've had to write similar sentences this past year)

Here's the story:

Bob Saginowski finds himself at the center of a robbery gone awry and entwined in an investigation that digs deep into the neighborhood's past where friends, families, and foes all work together to make a living - no matter the cost.

Frankly I don't quite get the comparisons some make between Hardy and the legendary Marlon Brando. I see the physical similarities, of course - the thick, sensual lips, the strong nose, the bulky physique; and the character here is the same lower working class type played by Brando as Terry in Elia Kazan's masterpiece On the Waterfront, but while Hardy is talented, I'm not at all ready to crown him the greatest actor of all time, a claim many aficionados make about Brando. 

Here's the trailer, take a lookey loo.