Review of Harsh Times (2005) by Hugo S — 11 Mar 2008

HARSH TIMES (2006).

Directed by David Ayer.

Starring Christian Bale, Freddy Rodriguez, Eva LongoriaQuentin Tarantino is often accused of overusing the word «fuck» in his film, well, in Harsh Times we can accuse David Ayey of overusing the word «dude». Christian Bale is an Gulf War veteran looking for a job in Los Angeles to get to marry is Mexican girlfriend waitng for him in Mexico.David Ayer wrote Training Day which was quite average but Denzel Washington had made more than decent. Here Bale, even if he is one of the best actor of his generation, cant save the film. The poor script and the incompetent direction unforgivable. The main characters spend most of their day in the car talking, drinking while driving, smoking pot and almost getting in trouble. They basically act and speak like teenagers and its extremely annoying.David Ayer is not in control of his film, he uses too much rap/hip hop music trying do create the same mood as Antoine Fuqua did in Training Day but it definately doesnt work. Christian Bale does what he can, and Im guessing he is pretty good cause he never makes his character likable, and he isnt supposed to be, he is just a stupid motherfucker, but I have mixed feelings about him here, he is one of my favorite actors, but I think he just got this one wrong, overacting and almost laughable. Maybe its the dialogues fault rather than the performance though but I cant really tell, the film never got my interest.Harsh Times is boring and doesnt have anything interesting to say, the editing isnt really good and some use of close-up are very questionable. I forced myself to finish it cause its unlike me to stop a film before the end.