Review of The Ice Harvest (2005) by Markb. — 02 Dec 2005

John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton have heretofore been two of my favorites, but they deserve nothing but coal in their Christmas stockings for being such bad little actors this year! In this indifferent attempt to add some bitter, unsweetened chocolate to the usual lump of big-screen holiday-themed treacle, Billy Bob does nothing more than repeat his performance in this summer's Bad News Bears.

..which was in itself an extremely faded carbon copy of his brilliant, gutbusting work in 2003's Bad Santa. The best that can be said of Cusack's somnabulent work here and in 2005's earlier Must Love Dogs is that he gives both scripts about as much (or as little) energy as they deserve.

The two play partners in crime in a Christmas Eve heist that goes foul due to the unpredictable machinations of various other individuals, Mother Nature and each other; the film goes out of its way to be assaultive and offensive, what with copious strip-club nudity, gore, nasty behavior even for this genre, and repetitions of Tony Montana's and Eric Cartman's favorite noun/verb/adjective/adverb, but it just doesn't have the conviction or energy to leave any marks.

Redeeming traits include cinematographer Alar Kivilo's lighting of costar Connie Neilsen (Gladiator, Brothers) as though she were the reincarnation of Rita Hayworth (can't completely argue with that) and two performances that at least momentarily allow the film to partially reach its Donald E.

Westlake-like aspirations: Oliver Platt is so oddly and genuinely endearing, of all things, as a serial alcoholic that I wouldn't be surprised to see M.A.D.D. start picketing the multiplex, while Randy Quaid shows everybody how it's done by delivering a truly creepy, menacing and funny performance before disappearing all too soon.

But the movie's fatal flaw is its lackadaisical direction: let's face it, this material cries out for a Walter Hill, a John Dahl or a Carl Franklin...someone with a reel feel and love for the noir genre.

What it gets is Harold Ramis, an increasingly uneven and erratic comedy specialist whose long career includes two films, Caddyshack and Groundhog Day, that have taken on lives of their own as cult movies.

Ramis may be going for the hat trick here, but the closest that The Ice Harvest is gonna get to picking up a cult of its own is if all the copies of it that will soon be filling the $5.