Movie Review: ‘Drop’ doesn’t phone it in

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This image released by Universal Pictures shows Brandon Sklenar, left, and Meghann Fahy in a scene from “Drop.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

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This image released by Universal Pictures shows Brandon Sklenar in a scene from “Drop.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

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This image released by Universal Pictures shows Meghann Fahy in a scene from “Drop.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

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This image released by Universal Pictures shows Violett Beane in a scene from “Drop.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

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This image released by Universal Pictures shows director Christopher Landon, left, and Meghann Fahy in a scene from “Drop.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

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This image released by Universal Pictures shows Brandon Sklenar, right, and Meghann Fahy in a scene from “Drop.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

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This image released by Universal Pictures shows Brandon Sklenar, left, and Jeffrey Self in a scene from “Drop.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

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This image released by Universal Pictures shows Jeffrey Self in a scene from “Drop.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

By Jake Coyle

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It’s oddly comforting that a movie can still dial M when it wants to.

Smart phones have largely been a bit of a buzzkill for horror films, leading filmmakers to find all kinds of reasons — dead batteries, no service — to strand potential prey. But at least since 1949’s “Sorry, Wrong Number,” phones have also been a reliable conduit for terror capable of reaching into the home, or your pocket. “Drop,” a silly but suspenseful new thriller, carries on the tradition of “When a Stranger Calls” and “Phone Booth” by situating its tension around mysterious, threatening phone messages.

Violet ( Meghann Fahy ), a widow with a young child, is on her first date in years. After three months of texting, she has hesitantly agreed to finally meet Henry (Brandon Sklenar) for dinner. When they sit down in a fancy restaurant high up a sleek Chicago high-rise, he’s charming and relaxed. But Violet, like countless dates before her, can’t stay off her phone.

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In Violet’s case, though, the distraction is legitimate. She keeps getting messages dropped to her phone threatening her son, who’s at home with Violet’s sister (Violett Beane), unless she does what he says, including killing her date. In her home security cameras she can see a man with his face covered brandishing a gun.

“Drop,” directed by Christopher Landon (“Happy Death Day”), doesn’t differ greatly from the large swath of high-concept, low-budget thrillers that regularly flood theaters. But it’s a taut little movie, almost totally set in the restaurant, with a just keen enough sense of plausible and preposterous. It knows to keep the pressure-cooker plot moving while not overstaying its welcome. At a nifty 95 minutes, “Drop” knows when to hang up.

As if adding a digital twist to the old line “The call is coming from inside the house,” Violet is getting message from an app called DigiDrop that can only be sent from a person within 50 feet. That means everyone in the restaurant — the bro who bumps into her, the cheesy waiter, the kind bartender — is a suspect. With her terrorizer watching her every move and prohibiting her from breathing a word to anyone, Violet is stuck rooted to her table when every fiber of her being wants to rescue her son.

A considerable help to the film are the grounded screen presences of Fahy (“The White Lotus”) and Sklenar (“1923”), both small-screen breakouts who here show movie-star poise. As the plot unspools, there are, naturally, quibbles one could make. Would a mother, with a masked gunman outside her toddler’s door be able to feign interest in a duck salad? Does the highly orchestrated trap laid for her match the motives of the criminal mastermind? And while we’re asking questions, could we not someday get a phone-themed thriller titled “Butt Dial”?

But if “Drop” is invariably quite a bit less than realistic, it has a whiff of metaphor. Violet isn’t just stepping back into the dating pool as a single mom, she’s trying to shake the past trauma of spousal abuse. Going on a date with Henry, whom she met on an app, is a kind of crap shoot. Will going out with a stranger met online end in love or violence?

You could also read “Drop” as an extreme version of a more ubiquitous scourge. This is a movie where the bad guy, for nearly the duration of the movie, is nothing but text messages. (They are typically flashed large across the screen.) As Violet grows increasingly preoccupied and frantic, she could be just about anyone — a workaholic after hours, a teenager, a desperate Knicks fan watching the score — whose attention is held prisoner by her phone. How much of the terror of “Drop” would have existed at all, if she had just put it on silent?

“Drop,” a Universal Pictures release is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for strong violent content, suicide, some strong language and sexual references. Running time: 95 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.