|
Freddy Rodriguez and Christian Bale in one
movie? I’m there. So, you can imagine my anticipation for “Harsh Times”
and the possible treasures it held with two excellent actors sharing the
marquee. What Christian Bale presents in the running time of “Harsh
Times” is skill. Pure Skill. Here he convinces me of the pure insanity
of his character Jim, a man so taken by his nightmares that any sense of
his mental stability is lost. Bale’s character is so despicable and yet
so damn tragic, and Bale is utterly fantastic as this character who is
inevitably going to tilt over the edge, driven by his need to import his
wife from Mexico, which he assumes will provide him with stability he
lacks. But we know better. Bale’s performance is just purely engrossing,
and his penchant for portraying this mentally ill man without turning
him into Patrick Bateman is impressive. He’s the soldier ruined by
violence of war, and he just doesn’t know it yet. Freddy Rodriguez is
great as always, and he has a wonderful chemistry with Bale from
beginning to end. I not only bought these two as great friends, but
Rodriguez is able to portray this man stuck between his desire to grow
up, and his desire to stick by his friend through thick and thin.
How do you fuck a movie starring two great
actors up? Rehashing “Training Day” is one way. No story is another.
Lack of character focus is yet another. Bur let’s tackle it one by one.
“Harsh Times” has the potential to be a very good film, simply because
its theme is relevant. “Harsh Times” is about an ex-soldier thrown into
the real world, and the problem is he’s hardly mentally capable of
living among normal human beings. But that theme is hard to find. What
we do get are slight highlights of this theme peppered on a rambling
melodrama. The two characters talk, and joke, and talk, and joke, and
bullshit, and zero progress is made in terms of development or story.
The narrative is dropped in favor of a series of events that take place
before us leading to a bloody finale, and the entire time I sat awaiting
the finale. Truthfully, I didn’t care where any of it was going, and I
wasn’t going to sit very much longer to find out.
|
“Harsh Times” just feels completely
rehashed, and pointless. It’s a concept without the story,
and a hook without a delivery. Is it a coincidence this was
penned by the same man who wrote “Dark Blue” and “Training
Day”? Meanwhile, the dialogue, while all over the map, is
nothing short of mind-numbing. Though the writer tries
anxiously to genuinely portray these two men with their own
language, within the slang and diatribes, they never
actually say anything. |
|
 |
“Harsh Times” meanders, and rambles, and
drifts off into insanely ridiculous sub-plots, from Eva Longoria as a
put upon wife, right down to a drug deal that goes nowhere quickly.
“Harsh Times” thinks it depicts life in the ghettos as these two run
around in it, but it just doesn’t have a tolerable delivery, and the
relevant theme of a mentally unstable soldier wreaking havoc in the
mundane world is lost. All of this is capped off with a truly abrupt and
cheesy climax that displays Bale’s true talent for acting, but not the
writer’s talent for closing a story.
Two of my favorite actors of the modern era
save what is otherwise a rehashed, pointless, and rambling little drama
thriller that really never knows where it’s going. It’d like to think
it’s a mysterious piece, but I really didn’t care about it enough to be
on edge.
|
