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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 24.24%
Worth A Look: 42.42%
Just Average: 10.61%
Pretty Crappy: 1.52%
Sucks: 21.21%
5 reviews, 36 user ratings
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| Harsh Times |
by Greg Ursic
"Dude, call a script doctor stat, this one's critical!"
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As a member of an elite black ops unit in “Trashcanistan” Jim was a specialist in Search and Destroy missions and he was good at his job. Maybe a little too good… Now back on home turf Jim splits his time between night terrors, relaxing with his girlfriend, getting wasted and prepping to be one of the LAPD’s finest. When his plans to get onto the force run into a roadblock, Jim embarks on a mission of self-destruction and drags his best friends along for the ride.I’ve read several reviews hailing this film as the “Taxi Driver” for the new millennia. While there may be vague similarities between Jim and Travis Bickle, any comparisons end there: I found virtually nothing in this mess that is worthy of recommending. Let’s start with my first pet peeve, white guys trying to sound ethnic: with the exception of Eminem and maybe Snow who I will begrudgingly tolerate, white guys should stay away from speech that makes them look and sound disingenuous. The overuse of terms like “Dawg” “Dude” “Homey” and “The Man” made the dialogue sound like a cross between a bad surfer flick and Damon Wayons’ “Homey the Clown” character from In Living Color. The clincher for me was Freddy Rodriguez invoking the “Homey Code”: maybe I’m just completely out of the loop, but I find it hard to believe that anyone could actually refer to such a code without his friends shooting him for sounding so like an idiot. While lousy dialogue isn’t enough to sink a film, a crappy plot also helps (or should I say hurts).
While I understand that Jim may have been a bit off-kilter before leaving for Afghanistan, I kept wanting to know what drove him over the edge. Sadly all we’re provided with are brief glimpses of his travails in the opening sequence that supposedly sent him off the rails. There’s also the matter of the plot “twists”, every one of which I had predicted ten minutes into the movie – there was not a single surprise, and I found myself literally groaning as story clumsily unfolded. Wait, I take that back, there was one device that was completely unpredictable due to its total lack of continuity within the story which was apparently intended to highlight the nature of violence of East LA., yet ends up being little more than misguided shock value. And now matter how you spin it, I cannot suspend disbelief long enough to believe that an unemployed stick of a stoner can snag a gorgeous lawyer girlfriend, especially when said slacker is Freddy Rodriguez and the babe attorney is Eva Longoria.
As far as performances go Bale, who is known for his intensity, deserves credit for making Jim a believable psychopath. The problem is that Bale may have done too good a job: Jim is such a remorseless unlikable scumbag, that I didn’t care about his situation or what happened to him – I just wanted it to happen quickly. Rodriguez meanwhile vacillates between emasculated weasel and toady, supplying the film with moments of comic relief whenever he tries to sound like a tough guy. Longoria on the other hand spends the majority of her screen time as a nagging harpy.To say that I disliked Harsh Times would be an understatement: I found the plodding pace positively painful, hated the dialogue which was trite and repetitive and I didn’t feel invested in the characters in the slightest. This disaster is currently vying for the #1 spot on my Worst of the Year list. Harsh indeed.
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=12776&reviewer=399
originally posted: 11/14/06 01:10:07
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 Toronto Film Festival For more in the 2005 Toronto Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
10-Nov-2006 (R)
DVD: 13-Mar-2007
UK
18-Aug-2006
Australia
N/A
![[trailer]](/images/icon/trailericon.gif) Trailer
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