Joe Deacon (Denzel Washington) is now a county sheriff having been runout of Los Angeles Police homicide department five years ago. When he is asked to make an evidence run to LA it should have been a quick errand but he is drawn into a serial killer case that might offer him redemption on the final case he could not solve that got him pushed out of the limelight. 

Set in 1990 The Little Things starts with a tense attack on a woman driving home late one night before introducing us to the detectives trying to track down the killer. Up and coming Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) is leading the case and is the new shining light of the homicide department. A family man consumed by work and obsessed with preventing any more deaths. 

As they investigate Albert Sparma (Jared Leto) drifts into their orbit as a possible suspect and they begin to spar with him to try to establish if there is any ground to their gut feeling. 

The Little Things is an intricate old fashioned detective story with multiple threads that all draw together satisfactorily at the end. Whilst engrossing it does not quite manage to excel beyond that. The story and characters are not something that you will not have seen before and the ending feels like a really good attempt at something profound but does not quite land perfectly. 

Washington as usual is excellent. Despite playing the archetypal world weary detective haunted by the crime he could not solve he is fantastically watchable and holds the entire film together. Malek is fine as the squeaky clean determined detective. Whilst Leto is perhaps a little on the nose as the creepy guy who is the lead suspect. 

Engrossing and enjoyable but not as good as the likes of Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia which it bares a resemblance to.