Good Time (2017)
Directed by Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie
Written by Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie
Starring Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie
Release Date August 11th, 2017
Why don’t I love Good Time? So many of my critical colleagues adore the film and yet I can’t see the full appeal. I love the look of the film, a grimy, color saturated chase through the underbelly of small-time Brooklyn crime, but the story just leaves me cold. Scene after scene I keep waiting for the film to find another gear and kick into the movie that so many of my colleagues have raved about and it just never comes. What I am left with is a fine-looking movie with a terrific score that relies far too heavily on a contrivance-filled plot to get from one scene to the next.
Good Time stars a properly de-glammed Robert Pattinson as Connie. Connie is the overly protective brother of Nick, a troubled and mentally handicapped young man who we meet as he is perhaps being committed to a mental facility, the film isn't clear on this. Connie rescues his brother from this meeting, but his rescue is quickly revealed to have an ulterior motive. Connie has Nick join him in a low stakes bank robbery that unfolds with no sound, just a passing of notes.
This is one of several terrific sequences in Good Time but like so much of the film; it stands alone as a great piece of stage craft but not necessarily a great piece of film storytelling. Connie and Nick pull off the robbery, but they’re upended when a dye pack stuffed in their loot bag goes off and foils their getaway. Covered in pink dust they have to improvise but that only leads to more disaster as they are pegged by the cops and paranoid Nick decides to make a run for it, leading to his capture.
The rest of the narrative stems from Connie’s attempt to obtain bail money. With most of his stolen money unusable thanks to the dye pack he needs $10,000 more to free Nick from Riker’s Island. Here, he turns to a friend named Corey and played by Jennifer Jason Leigh in a rather needless cameo. Corey is a space cadet who could care less about Connie’s brother, she wants Connie to whisk her away on a vacation she’s deluded herself into thinking that Connie could afford or even be interested in.
Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal.
