The Drop serves lite versions of Lehane, Gandolfini and Hardy

Tom Hardy holds the screen like no other actor of his generation. He combines coiled physical tension with a light vocal timbre that lends unsettling purpose to a disquietingly intelligent gaze. Unfortunately, most of the movies in which he has appeared so far hold him. 

James Gandolfini, who died last year, suffered from a similar imbalance outside his endlessly rich portrayal of Tony Soprano on TV. His sheer command — a looming stature that he could expand and contract in subtle ways, eyes and a voice that found complex shades of wit in menace and vice versa — often overpowered material made for less nuanced performers.

Material by Dennis Lehane — whose novels Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone were made into very satisfying films — should be ideal for Hardy and Gandolfini. But The Drop, adapted by the author from his short story “Animal Rescue” and directed by Michael R. Roskam, strands both men in overfamiliar territory. “Nobody sees you coming, do they, Bob?” someone asks Hardy’s character late in the film. Maybe not the neighborhood archetypes in this only-in-the-movies version of ungentrified modern-day Brooklyn. But in your average multiplex, yeah, we see Bob from a few blocks away.

Bob is the taciturn bartender who seems to play Jiminy Cricket to Marv (Gandolfini), his shifty but pragmatic cousin. Marv runs the tavern, and his name is still on the door despite a hostile takeover by some stock Eastern European gangsters. Bob finds an abused pit-bull puppy in a trash can. The trash can’s owner is Nadia (Noomi Rapace), the kind of skittish Pretty Woman With a Bad Ex you find in good pulp and less-good pulp. The dog-beating ex is Deeds (Matthias Schoenaerts), and we know him (and his secrets), too.

The ways in which men, woman and dog intersect is of less importance than Lehane’s plot intends. It’s the intersection of actors that counts in The Drop, and there are a handful of scenes that let Hardy and Gandolfini, together as well as apart, do highly authentic imitations of their best work. Given that this is Gandolfini’s last movie, that’s enough — though you’re never not aware of that sad real-world fact. Without the shadow of his death across it, The Drop would feel even less substantial than it is. Of course, with him and Hardy involved, it would also still be worth seeing, if not giving much thought to later.