Tom Hardy & Charlie Cox's Early-Career Psychological Thriller Is A Hidden Gem On Prime Video

Long before we all became acquainted with Tom Hardy's weird accents and Charlie Cox's Devil of Hell's Kitchen, the pair showed up in a film that might even be a bit weirder than some of Hardy's "vocal silhouettes." "Dot the I," aka "el punto sobre la I" in Spanish, is a 2003 psychological thriller that starts as a rom-com before transforming in ways you almost certainly won't expect if you give this one a go over on Prime Video. Oh, and there is a dodgy Hardy accent, too in case you were wondering.

Hardy and Cox are both supporting players in "Dot the I," so don't go in expecting star turns from either. What you will see, however, is two well-known actors looking startlingly young in this 2003 film from British filmmaker Matthew Parkhill. The writer/director has remained somewhat under the radar in the years since "Dot the I," at least stateside. He has written multiple episodes of Prime Video's Italian action drama "Hotel Costiera" and created the Mark Strong and Walton Goggins-starring Fox thriller series "Deep State," which ran for two seasons between 2018 and 2019. Long before all of that, however, he made his feature directorial debut with 2003's "Dot the I," which begins as a romantic comedy but ends up somewhere much different.

The film has been hiding away on Prime Video, where subscribers can stream it at no extra cost. It's also free to watch on Tubi, which continues to creep up the list of best streaming services. And while it won't necessarily be topping any lists of the best psychological thrillers, "Dot the I" is an interesting watch if only because it gives us a look at pre-fame Hardy and Cox. It's also just sort of bizarre.

"Dot the I" stars Natalia Verbeke as Carmen Colazzo, a young Spanish woman who lives in London with her fiancé, film director Barnaby F. Caspian (James D'Arcy). And while the engaged couple's future seems bright at first, that changes when Carmen indulges in the (entirely fabricated for the film) French tradition of kissing a single man before giving herself away to married life. Unfortunately, that singular kiss opens up a whole can of worms, throwing Barnaby (who is as boring as his name suggests) and Carmen's entire relationship into jeopardy.

The handsome stranger with whom Carmen shares a kiss is Kit Winter (Gael García Bernal), a Brazilian actor who becomes impossible for Carmen to forget as her wedding draws near. Thus, a love triangle emerges, and you soon find yourself watching a rom-com transition to a romantic drama. Of course, that's before things get really wild in the third act (though I'll leave it to you to find out exactly what that means for yourself, if you're so inclined).

Where do Tom Hardy and Charlie Cox fit into this? Well, they both have supporting roles as Tom and Theo, respectively. The pair initially appear to be friends of Kit's who are merely there to fulfill the comic relief requirement of the rom-com. But it later transpires there's a more nefarious side to the duo, who have been present throughout the film for a reason. And yes, Hardy does find a way to give his otherwise everyman Londoner a strange accent; in one scene, as he and Cox cavort in front of a camera at a premiere event, Hardy can't help but give us a proto-Bane voice.  

"Dot the I" premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival ahead of a limited March 2005 theatrical release in the United States, where it made roughly $307,000 at the box office. In other words, nobody really saw this movie when it came out, and it has gone pretty much overlooked ever since. But several critics did see it, and one of the most esteemed among them liked it a whole lot.

This was one of those films that most critics didn't like but which seemed to appeal to Roger Ebert, much like that time he gave the Samuel L. Jackson thriller "Lakeview Terrace" a perfect score and bestowed a similarly glowing review upon the controversial and disturbing '70s Western "El Topo." "Dot the I" didn't quite wring four stars out of the critic, but it did manage three, with Ebert praising the movie for telling a "wonderfully complicated love story" during its first half before hitting audiences with a surprise "and then another surprise, and another." The only thing that seems to have prevented Ebert from bestowing that coveted fourth star on the film is the last 10-15 minutes, which he admitted require "a great deal of patience with the filmmakers, as they riffle through the plot like a riverboat gambler with aces up his wazoo."

Sadly, Ebert was — as was frequently the case — mostly alone in his admiration for the film, though Richard Roeper and a couple others liked it well enough, as "Dot the I" currently bears a lowly 25% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. That said, if you're intrigued by an overlooked early Tom Hardy/Charlie Cox collab, it's an interesting watch and sort of fun to see how twisted it all gets towards the end.