Boston author Dennis Lehane’s writings have been the basis for a string of successful films—“Mystic River, “ “Gone Baby Gone” and “Shutter Island” –but this is the first he’s adapted himself, from his short story “Animal Rescue.” “The Drop” may be remembered primarily as the last film featuring the late James Gandolfini, but it possesses a good many virtues beyond his stellar performance as a mob-connected bar manager.

Chief among them is a remarkable lead performance by Tom Hardy as Bob Saginowski, the mild-mannered bartender at the place once owned by his cousin Marvin (Gandolfini) but after some reverses now only run by him for a Chechen crime family headed by the menacing Chovka (Michael Aronov). Cousin Marv’s, as the sign outside still reads, serves to bring in regular bar revenue for the mob, but is also occasionally one of a rotating group of saloons the Chechens employ as havens—“drop bars”—where their ill-gotten gains (presumably from gambling and other illicit activities) can be collected via a slot that deposits the cash directly into a safe.

The twisty plot kicks in when two things happen. First, the bar is robbed after closing one night by a couple of apparently wacked-out guys in masks. That will bring Chovka’s ire down on Marv, whom he suspects of collusion in the heist. It will also attract the attention of a local cop named Torres (John Ortiz) who’s also intrigued by Bob—a fellow he sees daily at mass at the neighborhood parish but notices never takes communion—and an unsolved murder from years before. Unsurprisingly, given Lehane’s track record, there’s a lot more to this simple robbery than initially meets the eye.

Second, Bob rescues an abused pit bull puppy from a garbage can outside the home of Nadia (Noomi Rapace), and is persuaded by her to take the animal home as a pet despite his initial reluctance. Over time he bonds with the pooch, which he names Rocco, and also develops feelings for Nadia. There’s a fly in the ointment, however, in the person of Eric (Matthias Schoenaerts), a menacing fellow who shows up at Bob’s door claiming to be the dog’s rightful owner and threatening to demand its return. Eric also happens to be not only Nadia’s erstwhile boyfriend, but the person generally suspected of that long-unsolved murder. The two plot threads converge on Super Bowl Sunday, when Marv’s bar is designated as the drop spot for the mob’s considerable proceeds from the game—and other sources of revenue—and a final twist connects them in a way that’s calculated to surprise, and probably will.

“The Drop” has many of the virtues of an excellent short story—no shock, since it’s based on one. Lehane lets things unfold in an allusive, elliptical fashion, ladling out revelations bit by bit but clarifying what’s happening with telling snatches of dialogue. The film creates a palpable sense of place, using the Brooklyn locations—shot in somber, chilly tones by Nicolas Karakatsanis—to reflect the ominous, forbidding mood director Michael R. Roskam, editor Christopher Tellefsen and composer Marco Beltrami take pains to fashion. And it provides a fair number of clues about where it’s headed in occasional tidbits about Bob, including his tentative participation at mass as well as a rather grisly sequence centered on the recovery of the robbery haul, but especially in the depiction of his defensiveness over Rocco, a cute mutt that’s nonetheless of a breed that can turn on a dime.

There’s plenty of color in the performances as well. Gandolfini is, as always, a substantial presence, and he expertly conveys the mixture of suppressed rage and vulnerability in a man who’s not what he once was, and who’s facing—as we learn in a brief scene with his sister (Ann Dowd)—a very unpleasant choice regarding his father. It has to be said, though, that the role doesn’t give him the opportunity to move beyond his “Sopranos” persona as much as those in “Enough Said,” or even “Violet & Daisy,” did. And while Rapace and Schoenaerts are both persuasive enough, it can’t be said that either fits into the Brooklyn environment as comfortably as Gandolfini does.

But Hardy outdoes them all. In a characterization markedly different from anything he’s done before, he captures in a wonderfully rich but unforced way a reticent, recessive guy whose surface blandness might just conceal sterner stuff beneath it. Practically mumbling many of his lines (though easier to understand than he was as Bane) and shambling along as if he were constantly afraid of offending somebody, Hardy succeeds in making the ostensibly forlorn Bob a sympathetic figure, and also one who shows unusual reserves of strength when called on to do so.

In the end “The Drop” is a puzzle movie that, when finished, presents a picture that’s small-scaled rather than expansive, a slice of life painted on a minimalist canvas. But though its intricacies might seem awfully calculated in retrospect and the outcome a bit too clever, in the moment they work just fine, thank you.