Harsh Times (2006)

Boring, long, and too preachy.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Blistering performances.

This is the kind of movie I categorize as "street-crime-drama-action". It follows two adult friends who grew up together in the bad area of LA. One guy is a regular guy looking for a job, and the other guy is former army ranger who is looking to work in law enforcement. over the course of the movie they meet up with old friends, steal, lie, commit crimes, etc... the army ranger friend gets a little out of hand and things get out of control.The final scenes are VERY dramatic and intense, I don't want to spoil it for you but the entire movie is worth watching so you can see the build up at the end. I felt bad for everyone.Very good acting, good cinematography, good writing and script.Harsh Times is the kind of movie you watch late at night while your chilling with your bros. Perfect movie for that. bottom line is its a FUN movie to watch. I was very entertained. They need to make more movies like this.

I'll start this review by using the cliché that I want my 2 hours back.This film features an assortment of detestable, unlovable characters alongside a chaotic and slow moving plot. They go places, and do things, all the while moving toward the inevitable conclusion, which by the midpoint of the movie we've already figured out. There is an underlying theme of PTSD, but if the writers were trying to garner sympathy for the soldiers who suffer from it, they sure picked an awful individual. If anything, you leave more convinced that 'Jim' (Bale's character) was an crazy a-hole BEFORE he joined the army, and at least they unleashed him on the enemy, instead of the rest of us.If you are a die hard Christian Bale fan, and think you'd enjoy him spending 2 hours talking in gang slang, and breaking every law in the book, then this is for you. For the rest of the 99.99% of us, there are much better choices. Save your life and don't watch this one.

I was really looking forward to watching this movie. I took the phone off the hook, dimmed the lights, had tasty treats and drinks close by and resolved myself to watch it in its entirety without any pauses. The thing is, I expected too much and got bored after thirty minutes of action-less tedium. Bales character 'Jim' is all snore instead of roar and reminded me of a small dog that never stops yapping, but of course is pretty harmless. The best acting is from Freddy Rodriguez 'Mike', who plays the subservient patsy to Bales' dominating and psychopathic war vet character. The terms' Yo Hommie' and 'Fuck Yeah' is comically overused and Bale is the one who looks miscast! This movie would have been better if more action had gone into the storyline, as it gets bogged down in domestic situations too often.Its far from Bales' best film and only deserves a five out of ten.

Really confused and misguided film. You will have a harsh time watching this!There is little to no story line and just random acts of violence which seem to serve no purpose other than to pad out a film. Christian Bale is as intense as ever but even he can't save a film with as little plot as this. Why the main character is the way he is is never really explained and the flash backs also make no sense and bare no relevance to the storyline. This film is just a bunch of random events thrown together and called cinema. Save yourself 2 hours and do something else.