Harsh Times

I went and saw Harsh Times with Christian Bale and Freddy Rodriguez. I read that the movie was similar to Training Day, it had the same writer, and I really dug Training Day. I also really dig Christian Bale. So I figured, how can you lose?

Quick synopsis: Bale is an ex-Army Ranger trying to get a job in law enforcement, Rodriguez is his friend, married to Eva Longoria, trying to get a job, is on probation. Bale has a girl in Mexico that he is trying to bring to America. He says he loves her a lot.

TD and HT have a little in common; they are both set in L.A., they both have an unhinged character as the lead, etc. But Harsh Times is literally about two unemployed guys looking for jobs, and drinking/getting into trouble. There is some commentary here about the military being responsible for Bale's character going insane, but these serious moments are intertwined with rather tedious and annoying scenes of Bale and Rodriguez yelling and whooping and drinking and saying "Dude" in an incredibly annoying way, as well as Salut every time they drink.

Bales' character Jim pushed Rodriguez's character Mike into a lot of the bad things they do, but Mike was never a very moral or good character to begin with. He's a idiot from the beginning himself, just not insane because of his time in the Army Rangers. I had gone into the movie hoping for something more than the tale of two unemployed guys being idiots, but when I saw that that would not be the case, I then hoped that Mike would play a good foil to Jim's insanity. This would not happen either. To say Mike is the nice guy and Jim is the bad guy is incorrect I believe. Sure, when Eddie at the bar gets his throat slit in front of Mike and Jim, Mike is freaked out, while Jim doesn't care and is almost turned on by it. But until the end of the movie, when Mike is angry that Jim brought pot over the border of Mexico into the USA, Mike never truly acts like a good person. It's his idea to constantly lie to his wife.

Anyways, whatever. I'm gonna go into some more spoilers now.

At the end, Bale/Jim loses it, and kills some gangsters, and gets shot pretty brutally. Mike frigging mercy-kills him, and runs back home to Longoria. That's the end of the movie. I don't want to be the guy that explains THAT story to his wife. Mike has got to be screwed, his fingerprints were all over the place.

So in conclusion, Harsh Times blithered about too much. The scenes were Jim and Mike were basically frat boys looking for jobs totally lost me. I wouldn't have seen it if I had known that were so. The more serious scenes made the movie more watchable.

Oh, Christian Bale is again ridiculous. If it weren't for Reign of Fire, I don't think he would have had a bad role yet.

Babel is going to be seen later this week.