‘Drop’ delivers taut tension

The silly summer season is officially over. With “The Drop,” a disturbingly dark little thriller that wears its tension like a badge, the fall film season has arrived with a deadly bang.

“The Drop” is notable for a variety of reasons. It’s made by Belgian director Michael R. Roskam, whose little-seen 2011 effort, “Bullhead,” was nominated for the foreign-language film Oscar. It’s the latest showcase for British actor Tom Hardy, who turned in one of the year’s best performances in his previous film, “Locke.”

It also had a circuitous route to both the screen and the page. While it’s based on a short story, “Animal Rescue,” by Dennis Lehane (“Mystic River,” “Shutter Island”), the writer has fleshed out the movie’s script, added details and turned into his latest novel, also called “The Drop.”

But the element that has grabbed the most headlines is that it’s the last performance from James Gandolfini, who died last year.

Of course, none of this would matter if the film were a disappointment. But, thankfully, it lives up to its pedigree and is very much a vision of Lehane’s rough-and-tumble literary world, even if it is set in a craggy corner of Brooklyn instead of the writer’s usual Boston haunts.

Hardy is Bob Saginowski, a kind-hearted lug of a guy who works as a bartender for Marv (Gandolfini), and lets the down-and-out drink for free. This upsets the more truculent Marv, a man embittered by the fact that he was forced to cede control of his bar to Chechen crime lords years before. His place is now used as a “drop,” a site through which the Chechens hide and launder their ill-gotten profits. Things get dicey when they think Marv and Bob might be holding out on them.

Meanwhile, Bob has his own personal drama going on after discovering an abandoned puppy in the trash can of a neighbor, Nadia (Noomi Rapace). He takes the dog in, even though it angers the dog’s original owner, local hood rat and Nadia’s ex-boyfriend Eric Deeds (Mattias Schoenaerts), who turns into something of a Bob stalker.

Then there’s local cop Detective Torres (John Ortiz), who is sniffing around because he has a gut feeling that Marv and Bob are up to no good.

This claustrophobic world is wonderfully realized by Roskam, who keeps things on edge so that, even when all is quiet and calm, it feels as if something terrible is about to happen.

Gandolfini brings the requisite amount of world weariness and simmering anger to the role of a man who feels robbed of his chance at the brass ring. Hardy turns in another strong, brooding performance, though it might be a nice surprise if he had a part where he could at least smile occasionally.

So, fall is finally approaching, and it can’t come soon enough.