Good Time

Completing out my "indie weekend(s)" of 2017 is the much-talked-about crime drama, Good Time. If you missed last week's review of the excellent Wind River, you can find it HERE. 

Good Time starts out insanely strong. And that's saying something in a year with awesome openings like Baby Driver and Guardians 2. It reminded me of Drive within the first 5 minutes and I became seriously excited for something incredible. The film remained this potent mix of adrenaline, synthesized beats -- all focused on a singular objective -- for much of the first half of its short and sweet ~1.5 hour runtime. 

Unlike Drive however, Good Time struggles to keep the momentum up in its second half, almost feeling like a completely different film at some points. 

Part of me is happy to have enjoyed the film for what it is as it's still a well made, very well acted (more on that later), and engaging drama. But the other half of me is pretty disappointed in how much the film meanders and slows to a crawl for its final half. The distinct change in pace and feeling left me wondering where the film was going; a far cry from the first half that is a driving, pulsating narrative ride. 

Good Time tells the story of Connie (Pattinson) and his mentally challenged brother, Nick (Safdie -- also one of the two brothers who directed the film). They rob a bank for reasons really unknown and Nick ends up getting arrested. Connie knows he must save his brother because he wont's survive long in prison. The film, or at least the first half, is a riveting adventure of Connie's attempt to acquire enough money to bail his brother out. It's these scenes that are logical, coherent, and exciting. The original score helps tremendously here and is one of the film's MVPs. It's often loud, driving, and made of mostly synthesizers. One may think that it doesn't gel well given the film's environment, but it works and is easily one of the best of the year. This is also a well put-together film. The Safdie brothers show talent behind the camera and there is some decent cinematography throughout. They favor close-ups on characters which I'm fairly impartial too. Here it borders on excess, but the angles also provide us with some touching character moments, particularly with Nick. 

"Excuse me but does your security company protect against...vampires. Bahahaha"

No. You don't look conspicuous at all.
[eye roll]

If the original score is one of Good Time's standouts, then the other is surely the performances. The entire cast does a good job to make their characters feel real and distinct, but probably none more so than Robert Pattinson's Connie. Pattinson is quietly having a fabulous year showing off his talents -- he killed it in Lost City of Z too -- and this is probably his career best. Not only does he look somewhat different, but he portrays a range of emotions for a unstable character who appears to be stable by context of those who are around him. Within the span of the film his character becomes darker and falls deeper into the bowels of crime than we hypothesize he ever has. 

Which leads to one of my gripes with the film; we know almost nothing about any of these characters. Nick is the only one who feels fleshed out and in turn, his conclusion feels the most satisfying. We're dropped into this world and supposed to care but for some characters that's an impossible ask. Take Jennifer Jason Leigh's Corey for example. We know she may be romantically linked to Connie, she also suffers from some form of mental disability, and she's in the film for maybe a handful of moments. And by the end of it all, she feels like a random character that was supposed to be important.

Stellar performance. Good to see Pattinson breaking
further away from the Twilight mold

And this is where my issue with Good Time lies. What started out as such a tight thriller with a singular objective (get bail money for my brother) devolves into something that meanders and doesn't really know which way is up. To me it seems like chaos may have been injected into the film to prove a point, but then the film itself doesn't quite know what to do with it. As I knew the film was drawing to a close I just remember thinking, "Man, where did this film go?". It's sad in a sense because what I'm citing against the film doesn't take away from the fact that it's still great. But I sincerely thought I had an "Instant Classic" on my hands within the first 10 minutes and I believe there's a version of this film that does earn that score, just not this one. 

CONS

• Drops us into this world and doesn't do much character or world building. Many characters feel completely random but you get the sense they should have been important
• It loses its way in the final half and never regains its composure. I am guessing that this chaos or dive into madness is kind of what the directors wanted, but I definitely wasn't enjoying the film as much (or caring as much) as I did in the first half
• Few too many close-ups 
• A bit of an "Ok....?" ending

PROS

• What an opening few minutes! The first half of the film is a 10/10 in my eyes
• Believable performances all around but Pattinson steals the show with a career-best 
• One of the best original scores of the year. This is a film that owes a lot of its rating to the music
• Some good cinematography here and there
• Exciting, driving, pulsing and at least always interesting

Rath's Review Score | 8/10