I've officially been watching this movie over time for the past two weeks...
Holmes, did we watch the same movie? I was totally enthralled watching this. It's no Braveheart, but David Ayer does a good job in my mind. They painted a great 1.5 hour picture of Freddy and Bale hanging out - living their borderline, out of control lives - as they continually lied, cheated the system, and slipped back to their "thug" roots...followed by about 0.25 of an hour of crazy happenings and true brotherhood. Their conversation at the end in the car was great dialog to me. Way better than the dialog from Death Proof. Honestly, I was totally happy watching these two interact throughout. A hang session that I wouldn't want to be a part of in real life, but certainly one I was entertained by from a movie aspect.
This was Bale just before his big rise to fame, after Machinist but before Batman etc.
Certain times, movie characters reach out and just work for the viewer...In this case, the characters worked for me. When compared to Rumblefish, this one seemed more real to me. I still think Rumblefish had a better plot and more stern/solid acting overall, but it seems Harsh Times gets a bad rap throughout from viewers everywhere, and I don't feel thats fair. I think this one surpassed my expectations and deserves a watch from all.
Or, maybe this guy is right and I'm not (taken from a user review on Netfizzle (c)), what do I know?:
"This is my first review.....This Movie and all the actors in it were gay as hell, If you are at all familiar with how people act on the streets you will vomit from how corny this is, I could act better than these dorks. Horrible story line and crap made no sense a friggen super model lawyer with a loser scrub dork who she waits for to find a job, she wouldent of gave him the time of day...this shyit was just so corny though I couldn't finish. If hollywood hires cristian bail as tuff guy they need to put me on....I can do 10 times better with zero acting experience. GARBAGE!"
2 comments:
Chris I'm sorry but I agree with that guy who called it gayer than hell. The acting was awful, I kept hoping Bale would get shot just so I could stop hearing his terrible fake American accent. Freddy Rodriguez was a complete dumbass, how was that script even semi-believable? Equilibrium = Bale's attempt to make a sci-fi F/X-driven extravaganza... ohhhh, too late...Matrix came out first. Harsh Times = Bale's lame attempt to make a gritty corrupt cop movie...ohhh, too late...Training Day. No offense to Bale, Kurt Russel also missed that boat with Dark Blue, and Keanu missed with Street Kings. I am at least happy for Bale that he landed glory with the Batmans. Homey, did you know that American Psycho was orinally written with DiCaprio to play Bateman, but he Bale'd to do the Beach instead? I love AP, but strangely I can imagine Dicaprio doing those scenes. Well, maybe not the raincoat scene...that was Bale epicness
somehow I didn't see this response but I'm glad it happened and we can agree on this movie in our own heads. Perhaps someday we can watch together and have a drink while we view Bale and Freddy also hanging? Handso called, he said you should have a blog. Do it...
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