Film

Small Crimes

Name: Small Crimes
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Crime
Released: 2017
Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Robert Forster, Jacki Weaver, Molly Parker, Gary Cole

A disgraced ex-cop returns from six years in prison seeking redemption, only to find himself dragged back into the criminal underworld he left behind. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau anchors this darkly comic thriller that treats small-town crime as a web of mutual entanglement rather than a morality play. It's caustic, messy, and funny in ways that catch you off-guard.

TMDb rating

2.7

If you liked this

Hell or High Water2016

Modern western about men trapped by circumstance and geography, with the same mordant humour and moral ambiguity. Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine give career-best performances in a film that understands how crime compounds itself.

But If you want a hero to root for, you'll leave disappointed. Everyone here is compromised, and the film never offers easy answers about who deserves what.

Justified2010

Timothy Olyphant as a US Marshal navigates the criminal ecosystem of rural Kentucky with wit and weariness. Six seasons of watching smart people make terrible choices in a world where everyone knows everyone else's business.

But The first season takes a few episodes to find its rhythm. Some storylines meander more than others across its run.

In Bruges2008

Two hitmen hide out in a medieval Belgian city after a job goes catastrophically wrong. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson deliver pitch-black comedy alongside genuine grief, with a script that finds poetry in failure and regret.

But The tonal shifts from comedy to tragedy can feel jarring if you're not in the mood for them. It's deliberately arch in ways that won't suit everyone.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Small Crimes

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?2000

Both are picaresque comedies about men who cannot escape the gravity of their own mistakes, structured as a series of encounters that reveal character rather than advance plot.

The Coen Brothers' Depression-era odyssey about three escaped convicts trying to find buried treasure. It has the same DNA as Small Crimes—men tangled in consequence, propelled by schemes, darkly comic about moral failure—but refracted through Greek myth and American folk music into something mythic and strange.

But The stylization—deliberately flat colour palette, mannered performances, constant musical interjections—can feel affected or cutesy. Some find it precious rather than powerful.

Banshee2013

A con artist assumes a dead man's identity as sheriff in an Amish country town. Four seasons of elaborate schemes, betrayals, and the weird code that develops between criminals who can't escape each other.

But It gets progressively nastier and less coherent as it goes. By season four, it's running on spectacle more than story.

A Prophet2009

A young man enters prison and methodically builds power through manipulation and observation. This French film has the same patience with its protagonist's incremental rise and the way prison becomes its own self-contained society.

But It's slow and deliberately unglamorous. If you need immediate action or clear heroes, the pacing will feel punitive rather than purposeful.

The Killing2011

Danish noir about a detective investigating a murder in Copenhagen. Sarah Lund obsesses over the case while the political machinery around her grinds on indifferently—a masterclass in how institutions protect themselves.

But Three seasons is a lot of episode time for what amounts to a procedural mystery. The final season particularly tests patience.

Green Room2016

A punk band witnesses a murder at a white supremacist venue and has to survive the night. Patrick Stewart is terrifying as the owner; the film sustains visceral tension and finds dark humour in an impossible situation.

But It's aggressively violent and nasty. If you came for punk nostalgia, you'll get trauma instead.

The Drop2014

Tom Hardy as a bartender caught in a money-laundering scheme in Brooklyn. Slow, deliberate, and atmospheric—more interested in character and mood than plot momentum.

But Almost nothing happens until the very end. Patience with understatement isn't universal, and some will find it genuinely boring.

The Sopranos1999

Both films are fascinated by the way men justify themselves to themselves and to the people around them. Small Crimes shows it in miniature across ninety minutes; The Sopranos spends years watching it calcify into self-deception.

Tony Soprano sees a therapist while running a crime family. It's the ancestor of every antihero drama, but it remains singular for treating therapy and therapy-speak as genuine rather than as ironic commentary. Funny, brutal, psychologically acute.

But It's long—six seasons, 86 episodes. The ending is controversial and some find the middle seasons repetitive. The therapy sequences will bore anyone who came for crime drama action.

Monterey Pop1968

Both are deeply interested in watching people perform versions of themselves in social spaces—how we lie, how we reveal, how we hide. Coster-Waldau trying to convince everyone he's changed is not so far from Jimi Hendrix convincing the audience he's a star.

D.A. Pennebaker's documentary of the 1967 music festival. It has nothing to do with crime or redemption, but it captures something Small Crimes understands: the pleasure of watching people present themselves, the gap between who they are and who they're trying to be, and the way performance and authenticity become impossible to separate.

But It's a music documentary from 1968. If you don't care about the artists or era, it's strangers playing guitars for two hours.