Whenever I watch a movie, one of the questions I always ask
myself is, “Why was this film created?”
What caused a group of people to come together in this monumental
collaboration of visual, audio, and narrative skills? Was it for the money? Maybe for the art? Was it to inform, to educate the audience
about some issue? Or were they just
having fun? Why is this a film, and not
a book, or a graphic novel? What is this
movie’s purpose?
This is one of the central questions asked of Robert
Pattinson’s character in Good Time. Constantine “Connie” Nikas is determined that
he has a purpose, that everything around him is coming together for some grand
reason. In Good Time, directed by brothers Josh and Ben Safdie, this philosophy
comes to the forefront when he and his mentally handicapped brother Nick,
played by Ben Safdie, rob a bank. The
heist breaks down into chaos when the bank teller rigs the money bag with red
dye, resulting in the Nicholas’ arrest.
Scared, overprotective, and perhaps overconfident, Connie hatches a plan
to break his brother out, either through finding the $10,000 needed in bail
money, or through sheer force, regardless of the consequences.
The entire story of Good
Time takes place in one chaotic night, and Connie’s actions rope in several
external players. While not all of these
people are innocent, the important distinction is that they are independent
from Connie, and have nothing to do with his story until he drags them in. Connie wrecks havoc on their lives in the
span of less than 24 hours, and ultimately, you have to ask: what was it all
for?
Ostensibly, Connie’s goal throughout the film is to save his
brother. In reality, the plot of Good Time is just as distracted and
chaotic as it sounds, and it lends itself to further confusion through its
dalliances with New York crime and drugs.
What starts off as a thrilling heist movie instead becomes a character
study and, even further into the film, a partial portrait of the Queens
underworld. It attempts to create a
culmination of the crime in Queens and Brooklyn, but only offers us a snapshot
of the life itself through the view of one person.
For me, Good Time,
while being deserving of any and all praise it deserves, is unfocused as to the
message it truly wants to portray. (As
well as the relentless closeups, but that’s a different story.) At the start, I had been hopeful that the
film would address prison reform in America, or perhaps the failing support and
therapy system for those who are mentally handicapped. The opening sequence seemed promising in this
respect, providing images of the neglect for those with mental illnesses in
prison. There were even several scenes throughout
the film that address police brutality.
And yet, like so many films that touch on these subjects, Good Time refused to offer any
definitive answer.
Films are slow to condemn any violence by any party within
their narrative. It’s difficult to paint
one side as wrong and still represent the nuance in the argument. However, Good
Time had every opportunity to expand on several themes, and instead chose
to focus on the narcissistic personality of Connie.
Let me be clear: this was not a bad choice.
Connie’s narrative doesn’t address the prison system. It barely touches on the issues of police
brutality, and if it does try to justify protest against it, the argument is
weak and avoided altogether. Instead,
similar to the Safdie brothers’ previous films such as Heaven Knows What, Good Time
dives into the topics of drugs and addiction, streamlining the cycle of
imprisonment through one night and depicting the inescapabilty of the system as
a whole.
While it’s never confirmed whether or not Connie has done
time before, it’s implied, and the character of Ray (Buddy Duress), immediately
falls back into his old habits the day he is released on parole. Other characters are brought into the mess,
including Dash (Barkhad Abdi) and Kid (Taliah Webster), who are completely
innocent, but now cannot get away. In
fact, at the end of the story itself, the only character with a chance at
redemption is Nick.
Perhaps what this means to highlight is the failing system
as a whole, or maybe it’s meant to explore the profiles of those with
high-functioning mental illness. Connie
is a brilliant man, if pretentious and ruled by his own narcissism. However, he is never questioned in the same
way that Nick is, as Nick is peaceful in comparison. Good
Time never confirms any of this, however, which is what leaves the film
feeling like only one part of a missing picture.
Good Time
Directors Ben
Safdie, Josh Safdie
Writers Josh
Safdie, Ronald Bronstein
Stars Robert
Pattinson, Barkhad Abdi, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Producers
Sebastian Bear-McClard, Oscar Boyson, Terry Douglas, Paris Kasidokostas Latsis
Running Time 99
minutes
Genre Crime,
Drama
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