Harsh Times
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Movie Reviews of Harsh Times
Movie Review: TAXI DRIVER... 30 YEARS LATER
Summary: 4 Stars
If you think you know what to expect from David Ayer... you're quite right. Films he wrote scripts for share much in common. Training Day and Dark Blue were just like twin brothers, The Fast and the Furious and S.W.A.T. also had this theme of contemporary criminal cities. So here's Harsh Times. LA again, South Central again, plot revolving around two main characters again except now Ayer occupied the director's chair.
Harsh Times came out to be rather small and maybe modest, but on the exterior only. It has a huge amount of meaning and sense inside. At first glance the film looks pretty simple but the next day after watching it a thought came to my mind - hey, this seems to be the second Taxi Driver! In 1976 Scorsese showed us the lost generation returning from the Vietnam war, its frustrations and inability to become integrated into a normal life. Now, 30 years later we see the situation's the same. New wars - old problems. Only in Taxi Driver we probably saw a person being transformed mentally bacause of the war, and here Ayer deliberately emphasise the fact that war alone doesn't change people. It changes dreadfully those who were mentally unstable from the very beginning, who shouldn't have gone to the army at first place. There are violent individuals who go to war to have a possibility to kill people. These individuals have to be cured instead of being enlisted. Because when they come back they're changed forever and the only way they know from that moment on is the way of the gun.
We see this in Christian Bale's character - the way he smiles during the battle in the beginning of the film showing he derives pleasure from what's going on, the way he acts in normal life afterwards where he can't get used to everything's changed. And we see he wants to join police force because it's pretty much the same to what he got used to. He accepts a possibility to go on a special mission to Colombia with enthusiasm - because he will be able to kill again.
Ayer's hidden an important message in Harsh Times - as long as governments see their soldiers as cannon fodder, they'll keep getting mentally ill and lethally dangerous individuals at the outlet. A country's recovery can only be achieved if establishment cares about its people. Other way we'll keep on receiving one lost generation after another because wars don't seem to end in nearest future. We see a small, particular case in this film and God knows how many of these cases are out there. It makes you think. I hope this movie will make a lot of people think and will become for this decade at least a small part of what Taxi Driver has become for 70s and 80s.
Movie Review: not great but keeps you glued to the screen
Summary: 4 Stars
I rated this film 4 stars because even though I felt Christian Bale was a little removed from his character and seemed a little out of place, the plot kept me glued to the screen waiting for Jim (Christian Bale) to totally self-destruct and yet, delivered it in an unexpected way.
I watched this film expecting one thing from reading the blurb (Jim self-destructs after being turned down by the LA police department), but that summary wasn't really anywhere close. Jim reconnects with his childhood friend Mike (Freddy Rodriguez) from the hood after returning from serving as a Ranger in Iraq or Afghanistan (I never caught the specifics) where his anger issues were put to good use by the government. As the men renew their brotherly bond, they also revisit their drinking, drugging and gansta days while Jim waits to hear back from his LA police application and Mike supposedly looks for another job after being laid off.
We know no good can come from their slide backwards and we watch in horror as it unfolds violently before us. Although Jim is turned down by the police department, that is not what leads to his ultimate undoing. It is when he stands at a cross road and makes a decision that on paper would seem to be the better choice that leads to his furious descent. Jim appears to be the essential Ranger material, stoic and unafraid of anything but we see the truth when he can't sleep without horrific nighmares , we see the cost of his outer bravado that not even his best friend Mike can crack. Jim obviously has problems that are only excerbated by the career path he has chosen over the simple life with his Mexican girlfriend. The beauty and peacefulness of his life in the poor and desolent town in Mexico is poignantly juxtapositioned against the more desirable yet destructive and violent life in California. We also see the comparision of Jim and Mike, both from the same neighborhood and with the same problems yet the choices made at the end, seals their different fates.
One of the points the film seems to make it that it's just as important - if not more - to pay attention to the inner self as much as the exterior or material. It didn't matter how many second chances Jim was given, we knew he was never going to make it but couldn't help watching to the very end.
Movie Review: Three-star movie, four-star Bale
Summary: 4 Stars
The movie itself is OK, pretty good, nothing really special. It's Christian Bale's performance that makes it rock out. As a south central Los Angeles streetwise white guy, it's astonishing to hear this Brit nail the speech mannerisms and character of what fundamentally amounts to a crazed loser who doesn't know a good thing when he sees it.
Still having nightmares about his experience in the Gulf War as a soldier, Jim Davis (Bale) gets rejected by the LAPD for a job, but also gets contacted by Homeland Security--they're interested in him as a candidate. With a girlfriend in Mexico and his best friend a Mexican-American Angeleno (Freddy Rodriguez as Mike), Davis goes cruising with Mike through the mean streets of the city, basically looking for trouble. Davis is fluent in Spanish--another reason Homeland Security is interested in him (you'll see what I mean when you see the movie).
And they find it. Murder figures largely in this movie--one of the murders is really shocking--as well as humiliation, deception, and truly crazed behavior. Eva Longoria turns in a solid performance as a somewhat believable girlfriend of Mike who's now a lawyer, but still "addicted" to street language when he provokes her into it based on devious behavior. And old reliable J.K. Simmons is fine in a small role as a Homeland Security agent who knows Davis is a man with trouble embedded deep inside him.
As one of the producers of the movie, Bale obviously had more at stake here than just his role as an actor, but he really does "tear up the screen" as the DVD cover blurb states. Directed by David Ayer, who also wrote the screenplay for Training Day--a similar movie in which Denzel Washington proved he could be as great a bad guy on screen as he could a good guy--Harsh Times has the same close juxtaposition of good and evil in a dangerous environment.
Davis' Mexican girlfriend, Marta, really loves him a lot--so much so that even when he starts truly flipping out on her, she still tells him she is madly in love with him. But Davis is too far gone...
See this for Bale's performance; it'll knock your socks off.
Movie Review: Gritty performance dawg
Summary: 4 Stars
After reading some of the reviews here I came away with the feeeling that this film is misunderstood. It is a pretty good depiction of relationships and the street life. BTW, there won't be much plot discussion here as it has been done plenty already. Why rehash it? Anyway Christian Bale is brilliant in his portrayl of a returning Vet to the mean streets of South Central(that would be LA if you don't know)who falls into his old patterns and takes Freddy Rodriquez, his homie, along the inevitable tragic and destructive path. There is plenty of violence, some of it schocking. It is one of those movies where you are enjoying the mayhem but know it is going to be a sad ending. Well sad, if only you sympathize with the characters, which apparently many people did not. If testosterone driven movies are your thing than you will love this movie. If you over think it you might not like it. Back to Bale's character, which is totally believeable and full of rage, confusion and macho supercharged. These guys exist, I've met them , known them and stayed clear of them.They are hell bent on self destruction and are taking prisoners, in this case, Freddy Rodriguez. Christian Bale is a psycho-cool guy who walks the line between the socio-cultural world of his "homies" and the straight world of law enforcement(homeland security)like a well balanced cat. His character can go from saying "yo vato" to "yes sir" without missing a beat. It is fun to watch. I really enjoyed his performance, thought Freddy Rodriguez was above average and Eva Longoria(now Parker)was smoking hot and the only sensible character in the movie. I loved the relationship between Bale and Longoria. It was the hate my man's best friend but love my man relationship. She fights to keep him to her self.Why do some women do that? Anyway this movie was very cool, had me riveted throughout but the first half was better than the I-know-this-is-going-to-end-bad second half.If you can relate to the world of homies and their cronies, like action flicks and want to see a good performance by Christian Bale than check this movie out.Movie Review: 3 and a half, fourish stars. once again it's all about the bale.
Summary: 4 Stars
like another reviewer said somewhere, a director could tell christian bale to stare at a wall for two hours and he'd pull it off somehow. like the taxi driver review says, this film is far from "training day 2" despite the similar backdrop of l.a.'s seedier areas and is more of a commentary on the effects of war when it comes to an already morally ambiguous person. the other characters talk about how "chill" he used to be before joining up for a tour or two in what he calls "trashcanistan". as he is drawn slowly toward his violent past and rejected by the l.a. police (for - guess what - a sketchy psych evaluation), his mental state starts to return to an instinctual and heartless automaton. his friends, his beautiful mexican girlfriend that he wants to move stateside, himself - they're all fair game when the feds offer him a job messing around in colombia.
that's pretty much the plot - this ex-soldier guy and his never-soldier friend both get "real" jobs and decide to celebrate their postponed adulthood by drinking, smoking pot and occasionally jacking a drug dealer or two. when it goes downhill, it goes downhill FAST.
like i said, for all this film's flaws (and it has a few) bale pretty much nails the character of an ex-military dork with a little frat boy and a little hick thrown in for flair. he acts like a jerk at his job interview and gets some good laughs in the process...he snaps and you can see true anger in his face - he's doing "crazy" without getting stuck in "patrick bateman" crazy or "the machinist" crazy.
i'd recommend it, but don't expect perfection...just a great watch with some wicked performances all around.