Le Bagarreur

Just a few days ago I saw HARD TIMES again, after I had seen it already twice some 10 to 20 years down the road. I did remember that I liked it a lot then, but I was not prepared to see how great it actually is! This is one of the movies that gets better with every viewing (liek THE OUTFIT with Bob Duvall)!! Glorious, just perfect and that in EVERY DEPARTMENT!! The OPENING SCENE is so beautiful, it makes you fall on your knees! A long shot of a slowly arriving train in beautifully landscape and run-down buildings of New Orleans, SUPERBLY shot in first rare camera-work, THE MAN standing framed in the door of one of the trains' wagons, the music (and what music, DeVORZONs probably best score, still unreleased = a shame!) starting slowly and you immediately realize here's a drifter, a taciturn MAN arriving in town. Charlie looks sad, run down, tired, WITHOUT mustache, not having had much luck in live. These are just the first 3 or 4 minutes, but one probably never will forget them. GREAT! Like many of the directors, who started their work in the 70ies, Walter HILL is no exception to the "rule", that most of them (if not all of them) made their BEST picture within their first 3 movies released (Carpenter: ASSAULT, Spielberg: DUEL & SUGARLAND EXPRESS, Coppola: THE CONVERSATION, M. Ritchie: PRIME CUT, John Boorman: POINT BLANK, ...): Wlater HILL made HARD TIMES as his debut and although he made some nice pictures later-on, none of his later pictures (the DRIVER, which is # 2 included) could beat HARD TIMES. It's - like EMPEROR OF THE NORTH POLE - a really beautifully shot study of depression-era America.

Bronson's muscles are - THE MAN being in his mid-50ies then !! - just unbelievable, slim, trim, knock-out hard, every ounce hardened flesh (check out CHATO'S LAND, too!), his acting is 100% on target (he does not look "bored", how some stupid critics wrote, but the way unlucky-in-life depression-era people would most likely look: sad), he is the ideal man for this role, and that just a year after he made DEATH WISH, which proves he was not out for an easy follow-up movie and certainly far away from getting as type-cast as Golan & Globus made him from Death Wish II (1982) onwards (sigh & weep).

JAMES COBURN is great, too, maybe slightly overdoing his sleaziness, but great nevertheless. Jill Ireland has her usual bit-part, she's fine & OK, but not outstanding, whereas nearly all the other character parts are just that: outstanding! Nobody plays himself into the foreground, but everybody fits his part 100%. You'll hardly find any other movie, where the whole cast is as great as in this one.

The STORY is simple but true! I just can't stand those fancy elaborated twist-here twist-there stories , straight forward simple but high-crafted storytelling, one of THE craftsmanship's of US cinema in the 40ies to 60ies (Ford, Mann, Huston) is brought here to another peak! The Camera-work is outstanding, too,a s is Barry DEVORZON's superb bluegrass/jazz/hillbilly score (release it, please!), which is probably just half an hour of music, but certainly deserved a full or at least half-CD release.

In short: BREATHTAKING and certainly one of Charlies best movies of the 70ies (when he made all of his best movies), truly at the same level as MECHANIC & CHATO'S LAND, beating (a little) BREAKOUT and MR. MAJESTYC.

10 out of 10! Go and see yourself!

Saw this movie when it first came out and I loved it. I watched it again last night and my opinion has not changed at all. It's just a fabulous movie and definitely my favorite Bronson flick. Fine work from Bronson, James Coburn and Strother Martin. The dialog is sharp and the fight scenes are excellent. This is no "Rocky" fantasy, but a tough look at a brutal game. The film really conveys what a desperate place Depression-era America was. The final fight scene is great. No roaring crowds, no dramatic music, just two tough guys pounding away at each other. Coburn is great and Strother Martin has some of the best lines in the picture. ("Some are born to fail...") Also we get to see some great New Orleans locations,which are painful to look at now in light of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.

I first saw this when i was a kid in the late 80s on a vhs. Had heard a lot about this movie from my grandfather and was dying to revisit this film for a long time.

Revisited it few days back.

To see Bronson in such a remarkable physical condition is truly inspiring. He was about 54 that time.

The film has a western n country feel to it, soothing n without the hustle and bustle. The music too is simple.

A man named Chaney (Charles Bronson) arrives somewhere in Louisiana during the Great Depression. We don't kno whether he is a hobo, an ex convict, a deserter or an asylum seeker but he sure is a freighthopper n a very good fighter.

He comes upon a street fighting competition n after observing a bare knuckled fight, he approaches the manager (James Coburn) of the losing fighter n asks the manager to set a fight for him but cautions the manager that he needs only enough money to fill a few in-betweens before moving on.

Before his first fight the opponent finds our hobo a little too old to be participating in such kinda fights to which our hobo responds to him with his knockout punch.

In one of the competition in the bayou side, our hero is cheated n not given his winning amount.

This one is replicated in Christian Bale's Out of Furnace where Woody Harrelson's character doesn't give the winning amount to Casey Affleck's character.

A bad image of the Southern sportsmanship.

Our hobo gets to fight Jim Henry (Robert Tessier) a well built, grinning, head-butting skinhead.

The film has good fights minus the blood.

The elaborate period recreations is top notch.

Inspite of the Great Depression, the debts n the gambling habits, James Coburn's character is seen sitting in his open balcony with his feet upwards.

Now that is something so relaxing n carefree attitude.

Hard Times is one of Charles Bronson and Walter Hill's best films. This movie is rugged and has a great feel. Bronson looks in great shape in the film and the direction from Hill is terrific. In the genre of street-fighting pictures, this one ranks as one of the best.

A desperate hobo boxes to make some extra money in the Depression. No love story, no cute little kids, no happy ending, no redemption. Just a hard man doing what he has to in order to survive. But on his terms.

To understand why HARD TIMES is a masterpiece, compare it to other films from around this time.

BONNIE AND CLYDE, THE STING, and PAPER MOON were all massive box office hits, set in the Depression. All three movies "strain" for a sense of desperate characters in a dog-eat-dog world, but every one of them cops out with Hollywood glitz and glamor. Here's giggly Warren Beatty pretending he knows what it's like to be poor. And here's Faye Dunaway, the dead-end girl, wearing scrumptious couture while she robs banks. Here's Robert Redford, the ultimate preppy blonde pretty boy, delicately hobnobbing with down-to-earth "Negroes" and glowing with his own virtue. Here's Ryan O'Neil, tough as nails and a real fighter, but hey, it's okay -- he's got a cute little girl along for the ride! One close up of Charles Bronson's face takes you to a place no other Depression picture dares to go. The ugly violence and the hopelessness in this film are so real that they actually build up the character even more than Bronson's natural authority and physical presence. It's the perfect vehicle for the perfect star.

Bronson is enough -- but there's so much more. James Coburn as the manager Speed, so dishonest yet completely likable and in his own way a real hero. Maggie Blye and Jill Ireland, both sexy and authentic as Depression women -- Jill too sickened by failure to ever love again, Maggie too aware of how short life is to ever let a minute go by without a laugh. Either one of them could wipe the floor with "Bonnie" from Bonnie and Clyde. Strother Martin as Poe, the dope addict cut man who adds his own humor, sadness and resignation to a movie utterly packed to the brim with memorable characters.

This is the most powerful and honest movie ever made about hard times.