Video Pick of the Week: With Brooklyn's Finest hitting theaters this weekend I went back and re-watched this Mean Streets meets Training Day hybrid from a few years ago. I saw it at the theatre when it came out, and while it is no masterpiece I felt it was a gritty and entertaining urban drama with some very good performances. Having revisited it I realized that some of the dialogue is so brutally humorous that it ranks as an incredibly quotable guilty pleasure. Harsh Times spans a few days in the lives of Jim (Christian Bale) and Mike (Freddy Rodriguez) as a pair of best friends who cruise around the more dangerous areas of Los Angeles. They are both searching for work, but only seem to find rejection and trouble. They are anything but innocents, and most of the problems they run into are created by their own unwise and crazy decisions. They guzzle tons of beer, rip off a street dealer and get wasted, and even rob a gang of four at gunpoint while hilariously insulting them. I will get to some the dialogue in a minute.
The whole setup plays like Training Day in reverse. TD was about a pair of officers that dress like thugs and act more barbaric than the criminals they pursue. Harsh Times is about a pair of thugs that dress like officers and even drive in what looks like an undercover cruiser, but they still act just as barbaric.
The performances are the key. Christian Bale steals the show as a former marine that has come home as more than a bit of a section eight. What is so impressive to me about his performance is his ability to go from a trash talking with a mexican accent street thug to a polished suit wearing professional with almost zero effort. It looks about as natural to him as flicking a light switch. The fact that he is a Welsh actor makes this and many of his other performances even more impressive. Freddy Rodriguez is also quite good as a character trying (loosely) to shed his former crazy life, but finds out that being a faithful friend to Bale gives new definition to peer pressure.
Having never seen a single episode of Desperate Housewives let alone anything else she has starred in, I can't quite tell how much range Eva Longoria actually has. However her small role in this film as Mike's doting girlfriend Sylvia is not half bad. She knows Jim is a terrible influence and is not afraid to continuously remind him of this. You can tell she really cares for Mike and just wants to see him find the same proper lifestyle that she currently has.
There is just something hilarious to me about hearing lines of dialogue like "Those are some bad ass kicks dawg, your lucky you got little bitch feet." "He turned that Vato into a fountain of blood." "I'm made out of ME!" and "You can 12 step off bitch, your dismissed." These and many more lines are sometimes delivered with humorous intentions, but other times even when the tone is meant to be serious I still find their delivery so intense and insane I can't help but laugh at them. The movie does still manage end on a serious and somber note, not much to laugh at there.
This is a streets of L.A. story that seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle among numerous other cop and criminal movies. It did poorly at the box office only getting a limited release, and even less publicity. It is worth a rental due to it's amazing performances, intense action, and with such comical dialogue and delivery Harsh Times ensures a good time. B+
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