Christian Bale is an actor who tries harder. In Harsh Times, his immersion in the role of an unhinged war veteran running amok on the streets of South Central Los Angeles offers the latest evidence that he will go to any lengths to nail down a character. Yet Bales's spectacular technical performance of a toxic bad boy on the fast track to hell somehow lacks an inner core.
That loathsome menace to society is Jim Davis, about whom we are told little beyond the facts that he was an army ranger (whether in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan or Iraq remains unspecified) and left the service suffering from post-traumatic stress. Jim is as intense a character as Patrick Bateman, Bale's yuppie serial killer in American Psycho, and Trevor Resnik, the cadaverous insomniac from The Machinist, for which the actor lost 27kg.
Whether stocky or emaciated, Bale has the look of a man staring into the abyss: think of the young Oliver North crossed with the Anthony Perkins of Psycho. The deep-set eyes in his handsome face are weirdly close together and their expression strangely opaque, as though all he sees are dead people.
PHOTO COURTESY OF APPLAUSE
Harsh Times is the directorial debut of David Ayer, who wrote its screenplay a decade ago, before his script for Training Day, which tells a similar story about a weakling under a bad influence. Both films portray raw American machismo as a disease and the buddy-buddy bond of two guys who goad each other into bad behavior as a psychological suicide pact. It suggests that on the mean streets of Los Angeles, men, when asked to choose between spending time with their wives and girlfriends or getting in trouble with their pals, will always opt for trouble.
Jim is first seen awakening from a nightmare in the arms of his doting, all-forgiving Mexican sweetheart, Marta (Tammy Trull). But his hopes of bringing her to the US and marrying her are shattered when his application to join the Los Angeles Police Department is rejected. He goes into an immediate tailspin, dragging his best friend, Mike Alvarez (Freddy Rodriguez) with him.
Mike is a downscale variation of Federico Diaz, Rodriguez's character in the HBO series Six Feet Under. Wearing a mustache and casting oily sidelong glances, he plays out the same internal battle between macho adolescent and devoted husband that tears at Federico.
Jim's despair over his rejection from the LAPD lifts when the Department of Homeland Security calls, and the movie suggests an ugly jockeying for manpower among local and federal agencies. Jim knows how to play the obsequious straight arrow when required, and he makes a good impression until he fails both his drug and polygraph tests. He is offered a job nonetheless, but it is in Colombia fighting the drug war and would prevent him from marrying Marta. Mike unexpectedly lucks out with a job interview with an old acquaintance.
By then, however, Harsh Times has signaled that the possibility for redemption is long past. For much of the movie, the pair rides around the neighborhood getting wasted on beer and pot and muddling through assorted brawls, robberies and shootings. A visit to an ex-girlfriend of Jim's is interrupted by the arrival of her new boyfriend and his posse, and the pair end up with a gun.
When Jim insists they celebrate in a final spree to Mexico, Mike dutifully tears himself away from his disgusted wife, and off they go. Jim's psychosis kicks in during a party at Marta's shack, and he has the first of several breaks that the rudimentary cinematography portrays in garish, wobbly multiple exposures.
Harsh Times purports to reflect Ayer's background, but much of the flashy gangbanger argot he wields sounds forced and unconvincing. The film builds to a melodramatic finale that would like to make you weep, but by then it has worn out your patience. These losers are too repellent to waste time feeling sorry for.
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