HARSH TIMES
When the casting sheet reads "handsome man with a savage dark side," the go-to guy in Hollywood is Christian Bale. He has two speeds -- seemingly normal guy with roiling inner turmoil, and all-out bat-shit crazy. So he's the perfect choice to play shell-shocked Gulf War veteran Jim Davis in David Ayer's HARSH TIMES. What happens to expertly honed killers when the war is over and we drop them back into society? HARSH TIMES pulls no punches in exploring this theme, and for that it deserves credit, even if the final product is less than perfect.
Still haunted by an episode in the war where everything went horribly wrong, Jim is trying to get his life back together and is hoping to join the LAPD and bring his Mexican fiancee to live with him. In the meantime, though, he's cruising around LA, up to his old tricks with his equally unemployed best friend Mike (Freddy Rodriguez). Mike is a little more sensible than his pal, but he seems only to be applying for jobs because he's afraid of the henpecking he'll get from his much more sensible wife, Sylvia (Eva Longoria). Instead of looking for work, the irresponsible duo instead just get smashed, steal shit, and try to score some drugs and tail. When Jim's dreams of joining the police force start to crumble, so does his sanity, and soon everyone around him is in danger of ending up on the wrong side of his rage.
David Ayer wrote the script but also gets his first shot at directing here. He made his name with the script for TRAINING DAY, and HARSH TIMES is clearly its ideological descendant. In both cases LA's gangs and shady neighborhoods are the playground for misguided law enforcement types. Both explore our ideals of masculinity and survival in a world where violence and betrayal determines the winners and losers, and both are great character pieces. This similarity is the best and worse thing about HARSH TIMES -- it is a fascinating, uncompromising window into another world, yet we've seen very similar material from the creative team, whether it is Ayer's TRAINING DAY, Bale's performances as a borderline (or all-out) psycho, or Eva Longoria as an unsatisfied wife. Still, Bale is outstanding in a very intense and complicated performance that few others could pull off. Freddy Rodriguez is the only other actor in the film for any significant amount of time, and he's great as the more easygoing counterpoint to Bale's intensity.
The focus on the two main characters works in some respects, but in other ways it makes HARSH TIMES feel claustrophobic and thin. Though the characters travel all around LA and even end up in Mexico, a good fraction of the movie is dialog, and in that respect it could even work as a play. You feel yourself being dragged down with the relatively unsympathetic characters, and with no breaks for subplots, and no moments of levity, it gets bleak fast. It isn't a fun ride, but then again, that's the point.
HARSH TIMES works as a character study, but it certainly isn't a blockbuster-type crowd pleaser. I don't expect it to do much in
theaters, and I don't think the studio does either -- the fim has been sitting on the shelf for more than a year (it was at last year's
Toronto Film Festival) before being dumped into theaters without too much fanfare. Still, if you are a fan of David Ayer or Christian Bale it is worth a look.
A GOOD YEAR
Ridley Scott isn't always perfect, but with movies like ALIEN, GLADIATOR, and BLADE RUNNER, he's shown that at his best he's one of the top filmmakers from any era. But he seems to be in peak form when he's tackling a subject truly out of this world -- his more down-to-earth movies can be forgettable. Unfortunately, A GOOD YEAR may just be too close to home to engage whatever sense of vision he has that propels him to greatness. A GOOD YEAR is pedestrian, mediocre, and utterly predictable.
The film is based on the book by Peter Mayle, who happens to be one of Ridley Scott's neighbors in Provence. Both of them (and Russel Crowe) were at the Gala screening at the Toronto Film Festival, and each told their side of the story of how the film came into being. After dinner and several bottles of wine, both would get to talking about how they love Provence. And what is not to love? Here is a region on the Mediterranean with great weather, outstanding wines, and unbelievable food. I'm a regular in France, and used to live in an adjacent part of Italy, so I know exactly the kind of love affair these guys have with the region and culture. I'm just as smitten. It is the kind of place you live when you're a world-famous knighted filmmaker and can live anywhere in the world.
Anyway, these two characters get to drinking and decide that they need to commit this oenophilic, culinoporntastic love affair with their region to paper and celluloid, so they start hashing out a story. Peter Mayle, being a famous novelist, writes the novel, and Sir Ridly Scott makes the film. Scott mentioned that this was such a labor of love that he almost felt guilty making it. It was shot just a few minutes away from his house, so he was right in his comfort zone. Maybe he got a little too comfortable.
Even if you haven't seen the trailer, you can probably guess the plot -- there is only one way it could go. How do you make a story about living the good life dramatic? You make it about a work-obsessed type who won't take even a breath to enjoy the finer things in life, but is forced to spend some time in Provence and rediscover what life is all about. So here we have Russell Crowe as Max Skinner -- a high powered London stock broker who is so money crazy he has few friends, never takes a vacation, and hasn't even kept in touch with his Uncle Henry (Albert Finney), who was like a father to him, in a decade. When Max inherits Uncle Henry's vineyard, he has to return to the place he spent many summers as a child to handle all of the legal affairs in order to sell it. But complications soon arise, in the form of the two of the most irresistible forces in the universe -- a smokin' hot woman and a competing legal claim. Marion Cotillard plays Fanny Chenal, the exotic, unattainable love interest, and Abbie Cornish plays the competing legal claim, also conveniently in the form of a smokin' hot woman with bonus incest points. Of course, Max has a hard time giving up his old ways, and he's an ass to everyone, which almost leads to his complete undoing. But the longer he spends in
Provence the more he realizes what is missing in his life... ok, you see where this is going.
Basically, this is nothing more than lifestyle porn for the 50 year old set. Disappointingly, it never rises to the level of actual porn
for the young adult set. Yes, sadly, the only personal investment I could muster up was rooting for nudity. But, alas, I was left with
nothing but some PG-13 life lessons. The acting by the two leading ladies -- Cotillard and Cornish, was fine, despite their thinly drawn roles. They play little more than stock characters. Russell Crowe had by far the best role, but he felt miscast. He's perfect as the hard-charging asshole, but even when he's supposed to be relaxing, he still seems like a hard-charging asshole. Even when he's supposed to be having one of the best nights of his life, on a date with the exotic and elusive Fanny Chenal, I half expected him to throw a phone at her. The saving grace, though, is Albert Finney, who is the prefect skirt-chasing, life-loving wine lover. Unfortunately, he's killed off early on.
A GOOD LIFE looks great, has a decent cast, a few fine moments, and it isn't terrible. But that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. You can see where it is going a mile away, and it is just hard to care about a character who's a rich bastard, and who's central dilemma is whether or not he'll squander an inheritance that he doesn't need and certainly doesn't deserve. Still, I'll be there for the next one, Ridley. Let's hope it is set in space.
