Review: Good Time

With just two films, Heaven Knows What and now Good Time, brothers Joshua and Ben Safdie have created a frenzied verité style following less than fortunate characters. In their latest film, they turn New York city into a labyrinth of crime and brutality. At the center of Good Time is a game-changing performance from Robert Pattinson.

Pulling influence from such 70's films as The Panic in Needle Park and Midnight Cowboy, the Safdies choreograph a heart-wrenching tale of crime. The film uses the entire frame and fills it in with extreme close-ups of faces. As the film opens, we are locked on a close-up of Nick Nikas (Benny Safdie). Nick is a mentally challenged man who is in a therapy session. Nick grows more irritated as a serious of questions are asked to him, things like word association and his ability to understand idioms. He begins to break down when Connie (Robert Pattinson) busts in to grab his brother.

From here, the brothers rob a bank. The robbery is a disaster as Nick and Connie seem to make every bad decision they can. The film wrings so much tension out of these scenes. The botched robbery leave Nick in the hands of authorities and Connie on the run. The rest of the film is him racing against the night to save his brother. Nick is not going to last in prison, getting into a beatdown on his first night.

Connie enlists his mentally-ill love interest Corey into using her mom's credit card to bail Nick out. It doesn't work either making Connie more and more desperate. As the night goes on Connie will ruin the lives of Ray, a troubled stranger he meets by mistake, and Crystal (Taliah Webster) a sixteen year old girl. Connie presence is toxic, leaving everyone he meets worse off.

This is where the film will push some audiences away. Connie is leach who drains everyone around him. He is complicated character brought to vivid life by Pattinson. He at in the same act can be morally reprehensible and yet so earnest in his concern for his brother. Still, many will not find a glimmer of good in Connie. Good Time is an exhausting experience, paced so furiously as to never let up from the horror's of this life. Several times the film utilizes overhead shots following Connie through the city driving the point home that he is running through a maze with no end in sight.

The Safdies integrate a good deal of social commentary into the film as well. It continually pushes on racial bias often highlighting white privilege against black poverty and stereotypes. Connie and Nick use masks resembling black men to rob the bank for example. Later on, Connie frames a black security guard for a break-in he commits.

On a technical level, Good Time impresses in several ways. Sean Price Williams' cinematography is claustrophobic, often saturated in blacks and red. The film takes on a drug-fueled quality at times. Oneohtrix Point Never's seizure inducing score is a masterstroke of electronic music. Combining otherworldly noises with heavy synths and wailing guitars, the score constantly attacks at your sanity. The effect is something akin to Gasper Noe's Enter The Void in its ability to feel so visceral. Good Time leaves your gut clenched and senses exhausted.

4/5