HARSH TIMES
Boys in the hood and the price of violence
PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "Harsh Times"
By Omar P.L. Moore/November 10, 2006
Proceed with caution: Eva Longoria and Freddy
Rodriguez know about the unhinged mania of Christian Bale's character in "Harsh
Times".
(Photos: MGM)
There's a safe bet that "Harsh Times" will leave you shaken,
stirred and in desperate need of a martini. The film's title delivers in
dividends and after a slow start director David Ayer, who grew up in South
Central and wrote the screenplay for "Training Day" (2001), capably directs an
intimate and intense film about two characters who recklessly plunge into the
mouth of Hell, consequences be damned.
This is a scary film -- and the chilling detachment of its final 30 minutes will
be difficult for some to stomach.
South Central is the locale for "Harsh Times", but does not appear to be a
metaphor for them despite the Los Angeles' district's notorious reputation.
Two childhood friends, Jim (Christian Bale) and Mike (Freddy Rodriguez) embark
upon a mission to find jobs. Jim has just returned from a U.S. military
tour of duty in Iraq, while Mike is trying to get his life back on track or move
out at the urging of his lawyer girlfriend Sylvia (Eva Longoria). Jim's
post-traumatic stress disorder is the major impediment to Sylvia's trust of him.
She knows that he is bad news and poses the obstacle to Mike's redemptive path.
Jim looks to the Los Angeles Police Department for salvation so that he can
marry his Mexican sweetheart girlfriend, the devoted Marta (Tammy Trull) and
settle down to have a family south of the border.
The ladies and their men: Christian
Bale and Tammy Trull (as Marta) and Eva Longoria (as Sylvia) and Freddy
Rodriguez, in David Ayer's "Harsh Times".
"Harsh Times" meanders aimlessly as its two principals Jim and Mike, a veritable
comedy duo of sorts, crawl from one prankish episode after another (including
stealing a dealer's drugs). Drugs, drink and the promises of potential
pleasures with members of the opposite sex fill their days, as does the
not-so-serious search for jobs. Jim and Mike are different but are like
brothers, and Ayer's script presents them as intimately as a character drama
can. As the film progresses we really begin to care about what happens to
them both, even as they both choose to make critically devastating choices about
where they take their lives. The sad thing is that they are aware that
they are wrong about the choices they make, but like curious onlookers who slow
down on a highway to watch the morbid results of a deadly car crash, they
proceed with reckless abandon.
Mike, who doesn't have the affliction of Jim's post-traumatic stress disorder,
instead has an addiction to peer pressure even as he frequently exhorts the
hollow battle cry of "we're men!" Mike believes that this exhortation
gives him license to be reckless and unaccountable, even as he snaps back to
reality under the direst of circumstances that he and his dangerously impaired
cohort Jim find themselves in -- albeit snapping back to reality when it is
often much, much too late. All exhortations to the contrary, the two are
not men, they are boys making decisions that they seem too grown up for, lacking
the responsibility that adulthood demands. "Harsh Times" examines whether
these two have grown up, and whether growing up will have its consequences.
The women in the film, Marta and Sylvia, Jim and Mike's respective girlfriends,
are much too smart for them. (Perhaps one may wonder why these two decide
to hang on with these men, but their faithfulness and persistence is something
to admire.) In a memorable line during one of several intensely
suspenseful climaxes, Marta tells Jim that she loves him for the person she sees
him as, not for the deeds he has done. This line is a telling one, as
Marta can see something deeper in him that he himself is blinded from seeing due
in part to his trauma. Jim's trauma however, can also be said to result
from the trauma of diminished expectations, of returning home to a place he
thought the red carpet would be rolled out for him.
Brothers: Freddy Rodriguez as Mike and Christian Bale (right) as Jim, framed by
the skyline of downtown Los Angeles in "Harsh Times".
Ayer's Los Angeles is punctuated by over-exposed film stock, super 16mm film and
exaggerated rich hues as the characters slowly begin their descent into a
hellish predicament. Ayer and his cinematographer took their cues from
director Antoine Fuqua and cinematographer Mauro Fiore, who collaborated with
Ayer on "Training Day" and used several of these types of shots from that film
to symbolize a drug-induced haze and a feeling of being in the belly of the
beast. Especially powerful in "Harsh Times" are the vigorous visual
effects or camera-shaking technique, to symbolize Jim's post-traumatic stress
disorder. Some of these moments have an amazingly heightened tension and
as such, are unsettling.
The film's latter stages are peppered with jolts and Ayer's direction is
littered with close-ups of the characters. He has a clever way of filming
quiet, open, expansive locations such as the idyllic peace of the mountains in
Mexico where his characters can breathe before the grittiness and sudden
explosion of events occurs. The peaceful scenes only make the more
violently arresting ones to come that much more powerful. The audience has
little room to breathe when the close-ups of characters in several scenes occurs
and crackles with a high-wire tension that tightens the gut of the audience.
"Harsh Times" plays like some kind of grotesque Hansel and Gretel
fairytale, only in this case with the Jim and Mike, it is Hansel and Hansel.
The question is, will reality eat both men alive?
Former lovers: Christian Bale and Samantha Esteban in "Harsh Times".
The acting is very impressive. Eva Longoria and Tammy Trull are convincing
as faithful,dedicated women who love their deeply flawed men, especially Trull,
whose performance is special. As Marta she is quiet and has an integrity
and credibility that resonates on the big screen in a quietly profound way.
Freddy Rodriguez has the toughest job; he has to play the best buddy who knows
not only that what Jim is doing will lead down a destructive road, but that he
himself is choosing the same path despite all the much better alternatives that
beckon him. Terry Crews has a small cameo role here as a drug dealer who
declines an offer to buy a gun from Jim. The interplay between Crews, Bale
and Rodriguez is impressive, and Ayer is adept at capturing real dialogue in
such interactions. Crews incidentally, appeared as a neighborhood gang
member in "Training Day".
As for Christian Bale, he is downright scary in this film as he taps into the
darkest recesses of Jim. He has an odd and humorous appeal even as he
becomes the most dangerous kind of anti-hero American films have to offer these
days. His South Central L.A. 'hood accent is very funny at times, but also
very authentic. There are scenes where he displays an earnest tenderness
and soft underbelly, which makes his character very alive and fully-realized --
remarkably human.
Bale has a habit of placing great physical demands on himself in several of his
roles. His Jim is similar to the character he played in Mary Harron's
"American Psycho" (2000), except without the campy aspect of that earlier role.
That same year he played a self-made wealthy thug in John Singleton's "Shaft".
In "The Machinist" (2004) he dropped between 60 and 80 pounds of weight for his
role. Also last year he starred as the Caped Crusader of Gotham in "Batman
Begins" and more than held his own. (Bale, a Welsh-born actor, began on
the big-screen as a young boy in Steven Spielberg's "Empire of The Sun", a World
War Two drama released in 1987.) Here in "Harsh Times" he is physically
imposing once again and exhibits an impending menace reminiscent of Ray Liotta's
character in "Narc" (2002) and shades of the spontaneous eruption of David
Wissak's character in Bruno Dumont's "Twentynine Palms" (2004). Bale
continues to do great work and it won't be long before he wins his fair share of
awards -- if that's something he desires.
"Harsh Times" are not good times, but is a time well worth your money -- if you
can stand it.
"Harsh Times" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for
strong violence, language and drug use. The film's duration is two
tormenting hours.
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