BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — When people stream “The Little Things,” they’ll discover that Denzel Washington’s character, Joe ‘Deke’ Deacon is on patrol in our very own Kern County before he gets called to Los Angeles to gather some evidence.
At that point, the story is just beginning.
Triple threat is normally a word used for an assortment of three talents. Starring three academy award-winning actors: Rami Malek, Jared Leto and Denzel Washington, ”The Little Things” fits that phrase.
“It must have been interesting for John Lee Hancock to deal with, Denzel, then go deal with Jared, then go deal with Rami,” Washington said. “He must have been pulling out his hair at the end of the day.”
For us here in Kern County, Washington stood out the most. Not just because he’s a Hollywood legend, but because he plays a Kern County Sheriff's Deputy.
His character Joe “Deke” Deacon gets called to Los Angeles, where he originally worked for the LAPD, to gather some evidence on a criminal in Bakersfield. In the process, he gets tangled up in solving a serial killer case alongside Sgt. Jim Baxter, played by Malek.
“There’s such a psychology to these guys. It’s very intricate and very complex to what detectives are doing,” Malek said. “They get very singular and myopic.”
It demands our attention, but so do the suspicious backstories of each character, including Deacon.
“It wasn’t what it appeared to be, because you don’t know which one of us….” Washington said. “I was reading some comments on something and there were people saying they thought I was, or my character, was the killer.”
Producer, writer and director Hancock says the script is a “character study on what it means to be a cop.” Washington says that his character deals with inner demons only someone in law enforcement can resonate with.
The complexity is something even Hancock and Leto, who plays the main suspect Albert Sparma, had to map out.
“We had to create a logic board to lay everything out. First of all, did he do it? Did he not do it? These were answers we needed to come up with and just to make logistical sense of the thing,” said Leto. “I love that. Certainly, the opposite isn’t as much fun, a movie that doesn’t make you think.”
The film is now available to watch in theaters and will be available to stream on HBO Max through Feb. 28.
