Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Good Time (2017)

Unexpected co-winner of the Unseen Films Award for Best Film of the Year, GOOD TIME was a film that got a great deal of hype when released in the middle of 2017 and then fell off the table and seemed to disappear- except in the hearts of everyone who saw it (hence the win).

The film has Robert Pattinson and his mentally challenged brother robbing a bank. After Pattinson's brother is arrested after panicking during a police stop, he has to race to find a way to get his brother out of jail because he ends up injured in a jail fight.

Intense "thriller" is not so much a film of action but of actors.

Pattinson gives his second career redefining performance of 2017 following the wide release of THE LOST CITY OF Z as young man who will do whatever he has to keep his brother safe. Never mind that it was his dash for cash that got him into trouble to begin with. This is full bodied performance where every move, every inflection and every look adds volumes and shading to whatever Pattinson is doing. While Oscar will probably won't take note of what he did here- I do think the rest of the film industry will as he has just cemented himself as one of the finest actors working today- period.

The rest of the cast is just as good and all of the performances have a lived in quality to them to the point that the film feels like a documentary. The line of course blurred be cause the directors, the Safdie Brothers, used a largely amateur cast.

In reading on the film a couple of days ago I realized that as much as some people loved the film others hated it. I think part of the problem has been the film has been marketed as a thriller. While it is to some point it is really more an intense crime drama, or even a drama about people on the fringes of society. This is not a film to go into looking for bang bang shoot'em up, instead this is a film that grabs you and drags you into one of the pits of hell because you are invested in the characters- wic is what all films should do.

Highly recommended.

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