Review of Good Time (2017) by Spangle — 03 Sep 2017

From the very beginning, the Safdie brothers' Good Time is a very good time. Telling a conventional story in a rather unconventional way, Good Time nonetheless can never escape the banality of its plot, even if its camera work, score, and acting are all top-notch. Directed with great flair and this gritty, television-esque level of grain akin to Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver or Thief, Good Time is a film about a man who needs $10,000 to bail out his brother after the two of them robbed a bank. Given that his brother is mentally handicapped, the problems faced by Constantine Nikas (Robert Pattinson) are only worsened, let alone his own inability to get out of his own way. A classic screw-up character who has a set goal that leads to him breaking the law further in an effort to get out of the hole he dug himself, Good Time blends that with Rain Man or Of Mice & Men in depicting the relationship between Connie and his brother Nick (Ben Safdie). Thrilling from beginning to end, Good Time provides strong genre entertainment but not much else.

This conventional story, no matter how much it is told unconventionally, and its cliche characters are truly what holds Good Time back from being a great film. As it stands, it is largely an above average film with some style and flair, but no sense of originality in its writing. It is a director's showcase where the writer's seemed to just fly through the writing of the film after watching a 1970s gritty New York-set crime film marathon. Encountering drugs, people who are all too willing to let a stranger spend the night, fellow criminals, and scummy bail bondsmen, the film's cliche plot - man needs money for any number of reason - tossed in with his cliche inability to make anything work or stick makes the film one that feels as though it has been done many times before. While the characters are fun and easy to sympathize with, they often operate as nothing more than average stock characters. Starring a screw-up with a good heart, a dimwitted brother along for the ride, an anger-filled mess up of a girlfriend who leeches off relatives, and a weird side character who the protagonist meets that introduces a new way for them to possibly make money, Good Time never really feels fresh. Instead, it often falls flat and never really sunk its hooks into me personally. Rather, it felt like a showy and decadent attempt to distract from its plain and run-of-the-mill plot by checking off a list of modern touches that indie audiences adore: neon lights, a synthy score, and a previously disregarded actor firmly establishing themselves as a star in the lead role. As a result, Good Time is never bad, but is never great. Instead, it seems to just settle into being a fun ride while it lasts, but one that will slip away from memory quite rapidly.

The film often seems to try and play itself a modern "edgy" drama, akin to moments from Deadpool or Kingsman where it tries to play up the lurid underworld of the characters too much to the point that it tries too hard. Showing this world of crime and drugs, Good Time makes its point pretty quickly that these characters are ones living in a dark world that has them in a terrifying spiral of crime and disorder. Yet, with characters constantly yelling at one another, a BSDM-themed theme park called "Adventureland", and a rough sex scene that seems cut from a porno than reality, the film is like a teenager's attempt to seem mature. By yelling at one's parents and indulging in anything to make its situations seem more x-rated and adult, children often masquerade as adults and will frequently yell out, "BUT MOM, I'M AN ADULT NOW." At times, Good Time feels like the cinematic equivalent of this annoying not-quite-adult person through its incessant portrayal of items that children believe to be adult, namely with regards to sex and drugs.

Driving forward on pure convenience, the film often seems to defy logic throughout with characters acting out scenarios that seem so far removed from reality that they could only occur in a film. Namely, the sequence where Constantine is allowed to stay at this stranger's house with her teenage daughter and no questions are asked. Who, in their right mind, allows just anybody to stay in their home when they are an absolute stranger? The same occurs with the daughter, who proceeds to hang out all night and go to White Castle with these two complete strangers. All of this comes after her seeing the news report about Connie being wanted by the police. In spite of him kissing her, there is no way she missed that report. The bank robbery is also rather implausible, especially with the response by the teller. Only giving a robber what one has in their drawer and then scribbling a note about it is impossible to give them more because of policy is a policy that no bank has. Bank policy regarding robberies is to give the robbers anything they ask for, not stop at the drawer and blame policy for not giving them more.