Harsh Times Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)November 9th, 2006
HARSH TIMES
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *
Hey Dawg, do you and a bunch of your homies want to go to a movie where you can see a couple of dudes smoke some serious dope for a couple of hours straight? Bro, if you do, I've got this druggie comedy where you can hear lots of really bad dialog spoken between puffs. But if you get wasted enough before you enter the theater, you probably won't realize that the clichéd dialog is mumbled, and you won't mind that the cinematography has all the glamour of a dirty toilet and that the script has no story.
On the good side, the leads laugh a lot, so at least they must have had a good time.
Written and directed by David Ayer, whose writing credits include both TRAINING DAY and, more to the point, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, the movie is aptly titled HARSH TIMES, since it is harsh. It's also crude and absolutely and totally pointless.
To the extent the narrative has a story, it involves a couple of losers. One, Jim Davis (Christian Bale), is a loose cannon who thinks he's police material since he served in Iraq. The other, Jim's best bud, Mike Alonzo (Freddy Rodríguez), spends his days not looking for a job, while lying to his girlfriend (Eva Longoria in a small part). Mike and Jim drive around East. L.A., where Jim is the only white guy within fifty miles, while they smoke all of the dope they can and rattle off a bunch of gibberish.
The utterly predictable last act has Jim's rage finally boiling over, getting him into some serious trouble with deadly consequences.
A repetitive and pointless stoner comedy, it's never funny, interesting or even tolerable. I've rarely seen so many people checking their watches in a theater.
HARSH TIMES runs a long 2:00. The film is in English and in Spanish, some of which is subtitled. It is rated R for "strong violence, language and drug use" and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, November 7, 2006. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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