Violet hasn’t been on a date in a good long while.
It’s not like there haven’t been offers. The single mom draws plenty of male attention for both her beauty and her brains. But she’s been the one to keep everyone at arm’s length. She’s justified that non-dating distance with the demands of her workload as a counselor and as a mom.
But truthfully, those aren’t really the only reasons she’s avoided romantic connections. She’s also … afraid, in a way.
You see, Violet is so great at helping emotionally wounded and abused women because she herself was once an abused wife. Her husband screamed at her and beat her. Violet even had a gun pointed at her and her infant son. And it was only the death of her husband, Blake, that set her free.
Even a therapist can be emotionally locked-up tight with those kinds of wounds.
Anyway, all of that is why this first date with a guy she’s only ever met online is such a huge step for her. I mean, who knows how badly it could all go?
Violet’s date, Henry, seems to be thoughtful and kind. They’ve been talking together for about three months, and Henry hasn’t pushed her once. He’s a press photographer from the local mayor’s office. And his photography is respected in and out of the political sphere.
But to be away from her son and off at a fancy restaurant with this relative stranger isn’t easy for Violent. What if he’s selfish or rude? What if he’s nothing like the good guy he seems to be? What if it’s all been an act?
Violet’s sister, Jen, comes over to babysit and to push Violet out the door. “They’re not all Blake,” she proclaims. Violet knows that’s true. It’s the sort of thing she would say to encourage her own patients.
So, she dresses up, puts on her makeup and sets off for a fancy restaurant on the top of a local high-rise. It’s a beautiful, classy place filled with beautiful, classy people. When Henry shows up, he’s handsome and charming in a relaxed, unassuming way. And Violet can finally relax herself, with a glass of wine in hand. It feels good to be here with this man.
Perhaps all her fears about this first date were completely overblown and ridiculous.
The only annoyance has been these odd phone messages she’s gotten since she first arrived. Violet can’t explain why these local “drops” from someone who has to be nearby are being sent or who they’re from. Henry looks at her phone and suggests it’s some idiot in the restaurant who wants her attention.
Is it that guy she bumped into when she first got here? The smarmy piano player who eyed her while she ordered wine at the bar? She isn’t sure. But it sure is a pain. Maybe she should …
“Your phone is cloned. I can see everything. Call the police and your son dies!” pops up on Violet’s phone.
And it’s at that moment that Violet realizes that her worst fears about this first date … weren’t even close.
For all of Violet’s doubts about Henry, he turns out to be a very thoughtful, considerate guy who patiently gives the frantic and oddly acting Violet the benefit of the doubt. And when she eventually talks about the past abuse she suffered and what it cost her, he thanks her for sharing and comforts her. “That’s what abusive people do,” Henry tells her. “They take everything away. … They steal away hope.”
As the story unfolds, Henry also goes out of his way to help Violet and to put her at ease. He uses his own phone to walk around the restaurant to determine who might be in range to send drop messages, for instance. When Henry believes that Violet’s anxiety is simply due to issues at home, he makes it plain that Violet’s son is far more important than their date. And later, he’s willing to step between Violet and a gunman.
In a similar manner, a woman working at the restaurant bar notices Violet’s emotional distress and wants to help if Violet’s date is becoming abusive. The woman also runs over to push a gunman who’s about to shoot someone; she’s hit and injured for her efforts.
After bad things happen, someone says, “My horoscope was right.”
Early on, Jen and Violet are talking about the upcoming date, and Jen asks about what underwear her sister is wearing. “You need to get laid,” she tells Violet. When Violet and Henry first meet, they banter about online dating apps, and Violet jokes about getting requests for “feet pics.” A bit later, Violet receives drop messages and Henry quips, “At least it’s not a d–k pic.”
A smirking piano player flirts with Violet as she sits at the bar. In order to keep Henry from cutting their date short, Violet kisses him. A couple embraces and kisses in an elevator. A waiter speaks with a somewhat effeminate lisp.
To force Violet to comply, numerous threats are made targeting her child’s life. As part of the message sender’s threat, he sends a masked man with a gun to Violet’s home. She watches the man’s actions via her home security cameras.
[Spoiler Warning] We see the man knock out Violet’s sister and physically lift Toby, Violet’s son, hitting the walls with him and throwing him into his room. Later, the masked killer shoots at several people and through locked doors, he shoots someone in the shoulder. He shoots into Toby’s bed, believing the boy is underneath it. And he viciously thumps a pair of women around a kitchen and hallway, smashing mirrors and various fragile objects. He bashes one person to the floor, kicking her violently in the side and head.
We also see, in a series of intensely violent flashbacks, scenes where Violent is badly bloodied and physically abused by her husband. He kicks her in the head and aims a gun at her blood-smeared face while screaming. He even gives her the gun at one point, but she is unable to pull the trigger. He grabs the weapon back and points it at their infant son.
The message sender supplies a small vial of poison for Violet to poison Henry’s drink with. Two different people are poisoned. One falls to the floor, mouth foaming.
Someone takes a bullet meant for Violet and falls, bloodied, to the floor. A woman is slammed up against a window and stabbed in the back. A restaurant window is shot and then smashed open. Two people fall out of it. One crashes down into a neon sign below while the other dangles from the broken window by a snagged and tearing tablecloth.
A man is stabbed in the leg and then in the chest by two different knives, the protruding blades are left lodged there. Someone is shot three times in the abdomen. A screaming man raises his pistol to his own chin to commit suicide and the camera cuts away as he pulls the trigger.
A panicked woman drives at speed through traffic, sideswiping other vehicles and smashing through signs and road barriers.
The dialogue contains one clear f-word (and possibly more uses in a chaotic scene filled with screaming people), two s-words and a single use each of “d–n” and “d–khead.” God and Jesus’ names are collectively abused a total of four times (once combining God and “d–n”).
When Violet first enters the restaurant, she goes to the bar for a glass of wine. After Henry enters, he jokingly says he had several drinks in the car on the way over. From there we see a number of patrons drinking wine and mixed drinks throughout the evening. Violet and Henry also order shots of tequila, each of them drink a shot.
The threatening messages Violet receives force her to lie, steal and potentially kill if she wants to protect her son’s life.
Drop has an attractive sheen about it. And that’s thanks in no small part to Christopher Landon’s well-staged direction and the film’s appealing central players: Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar.
However, it’s only after letting your brain settle into the tense, first-date thriller storyline that you suddenly realize that the logic behind it all is the equivalent of a block of Swiss cheese. Even a well-equipped Mission Impossible team (with Tom Cruise at the forefront) couldn’t make this story’s plot points work.
Compounding those scripting problems, though, is the film’s violence—featured in a variety of shooting, stabbing and poisoning attacks, as well as a sub-plot painfully depicting flashbacks of aggressive marital abuse. The film arguably ends with a tacit encouragement that abuse victims should be “strong enough” to step up and kill their abusers.
Add the film’s plusses and minuses together and you’ve got an aesthetically inviting thriller … with issues. Whether or not it’s also worthy of a date night is up to you.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
Our weekly newsletter will keep you in the loop on the biggest things happening in entertainment and technology. Sign up today, and we’ll send you a chapter from the new Plugged In book, Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family, that focuses on how to implement a “screentime reset” in your family!
