The Little Things is brand-new on HBO Max this month, but you’d be forgiven for thinking you half-remember it from flipping channels back in the ’90s. Not only is it set in that era, it feels like it was made then — and in fact the script, by writer-director John Lee Hancock, dates back to that decade. The film’s throwback qualities are prominent, and not always for the better.
It does have its charms — chiefly Denzel Washington in the lead role of Joe “Deke” Deacon, a Kern County…