Harsh Times

Harsh Times
by David Ayer

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Chaka Forman, Christian Bale, Eva Longoria, Freddy Rodr?guez, Tammy Trull
Director: David Ayer
Brand: WELLSPRING/GENIUS
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-03-13
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Weinstein Company

Movie Reviews of Harsh Times

Movie Review: A study in self-destructive behavior
Summary: 4 Stars

Christian Bale (Jim Davis) is really psychotic in this movie. And he takes Freddy Rodriguez (Mike Alonzo) on this ride of deception, rip-offs, lies, self-indulgence and violence. Just when you think he's changing his ways, Davis sinks deeper into a morass that leads he and Mike to places and circumstances out of their control. Eva Longoria is the long-suffering Sylvia, Rodiguez's girlfriend who must put up with Mike and Jim's sick antics (mostly unbeknownst to her). The end wasn't shocking, but well expected, seeing the deadly path Bale was taking as the movie progressed. Bleak and pathetic existence of two friends, seemingly going nowhere but down.

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Summary of Harsh Times

(Action) Bale stars as an ex-Army Ranger who finds himself slipping back into his old life of petty crime and booze after a job offer from the LAPD evaporates. Honorable discharged Homeland Security wants to recruit him for some special ops in Central America but first he has to pass a urine test...which proves difficult. Film directorial debut for Ayer who has written such box office hits as TRAINING DAY U-571 and THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS System Requirements:Run Time: 116 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DRAMA/CRIME & CRIMINALS UPC:?796019799553 Manufacturer No:?79955

Bleak as its South Central Los Angeles setting, Harsh Times is like a suicidal vortex swallowing men who ought to know better but can't stop their self-destruction. Christian Bale stars as Jim Davis, a stressed-out, former Army Ranger who becomes a very bad influence on his weak-willed buddy, Mike Alvarez (Freddy Rodriguez of Six Feet Under). Together the two meander through streets at night, getting drunk and stoned, finding trouble for its own sake and inviting danger as a ritual of machismo bonding. Mike's wife, Sylvia (Eva Longoria), a lawyer whom Mike, working as a telemarketer, put through school, is repelled by Jim and watches in pain as her spouse chooses a downward spiral over renewal and redemption with her. When Jim's application to join the L.A. police is turned down, he leads Mike into pure anarchy. An impractical change of fortune doesn't help any, and first-time director David Ayer, who wrote the screenplay for Harsh Times years before his script for Training Day, goes to some lengths, dramatically and visually, to convey Jim's unhinged condition. The dreariness of it all, and a sense that Bale has constructed--but not exactly lived in--another in his gallery of lost, misfit souls, makes it hard to connect with this film. Still, it is hard to turn away from these desperate and dangerous characters. --Tom Keogh

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