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The Little Things is a moody crime thriller from John Lee Hancock, starring an Oscar-winning cast — Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto — and taking viewers straight back to the noir thrillers of the ‘90s. While the film delivers plenty of atmospheric Los Angeles visuals and a nostalgic detective duo, its story feels familiar and at times outdated, offering more of a tribute to the classics than something truly fresh. Still, it’s worth watching for its performances and as a throwback to a bygone era of crime cinema. With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at how The Little Things builds its atmosphere, what sets its characters apart, and — most importantly — what really happens in the film’s ambiguous ending.
Warning: spoilers ahead!
While the ending of The Little Things doesn’t reach the emotional intensity of Fincher’s Se7en, the scene where Malek’s and Leto’s characters are alone in the empty field is filmed quite inventively. Essentially, we witness a duel of minds: Detective Jim Baxter is convinced he’s facing the killer, while Albert Sparma is just toying with the cop — he clearly enjoys messing with people’s heads, probably because it gives him a sense of superiority. Since it’s a duel, the scene is staged like a classic western.
Baxter stands directly across from Sparma, as if both are about to draw their guns and start shooting. But only the detective actually has a gun; Sparma’s weapon is his sharp tongue. In the same scene, Leto’s character even pretends to shoot Baxter with a finger gun, signaling that he has won this duel — even at the cost of his own life.
Now, let’s return to Denzel Washington’s character, Joe Deacon. Through two investigations (and their tragic outcomes) — one he led as a detective, and one where he helped his younger colleague Baxter — the director communicates the main idea: history tends to repeat itself. The reason? Human nature never changes. So murders will always happen, and there’s nothing you can do about it. More than that, the guilty won’t always face justice for their crimes.
This idea is hinted at almost from the film’s very beginning, in the conversation between Deacon and Baxter before they enter the crime scene. John Lee Hancock also uses recurring imagery to reinforce this theme: a cross on the hill (seen at the beginning and end), a red hairclip, and a blood-red bullet.
The topic of religion in the film isn’t accidental. In one scene, the camera briefly lingers on Franz Schwartz’s painting “Agony in the Garden” (1898). It shows Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane right after the Last Supper — at a moment of overwhelming sadness, just before realizing the apostles will betray him. Joe Deacon seems to feel the same way (the painting hangs in his apartment): he has dedicated his life to fighting crime, only to accidentally take the life of an innocent girl. It’s no surprise, then, that Deacon covers for the young, promising detective, and manipulates events so that Baxter believes he killed the real murderer. By Deacon’s design, Baxter is left with a blissful ignorance that both Deacon and Jesus (in the painting) were denied.
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