Good Time

Greetings from Lithuania.

"Good Time" (2017) is one of the more involving movies I've seen in some time now. This is a good thrill ride from start till finish. It has a very good directing, good and involving script, great performances and great pacing. The movie is pretty brutal, but its not a blood fest. It has a simple premise and keeps on to it till the end.

Overall, i really enjoyed "Good Time" for its all 1 h 38 min run time. It never dragged and i was very involved into this story superbly told. Very good movie on all accounts.

Good Time is essentially a cinematic render, of someone's worst day. It shares the narrative of Connie & Nick Nikas, small-time criminals that find themselves confronted by the consequences of a botched bank heist. Its storyline then comprises of a myriad of unfortunate events, short episodes that draws optimism, and more doses of unfortunate events that compounds & compounds on its characters. While these concepts aren't exactly groundbreaking, the direction of Josh & Benny Safdie, plus the performances of Roberto Pattinson & Benny Safdie, are transcendent.

Good time deserves notice, from its technical wonders alone. The Safdie brothers & Sean Prince Williams' knack for showcasing the city-night grime through superb cinematography & widescreen death stares on its characters, heightens the external & personal crises of its personas. From here, the adrenalince-inducing score, that sees a deeply entertaining infusion of EDM, absolutely intensify its impassioned & stoic moments. As for Good Time's performances, Pattinson was a revelation, shedding his typecast with a committed portrayal. He conveys emphatically the scum of Connie, yet projects unrelenting devotion for Nick as his redeeming quirk, drawing audiences to his plight. Benny Safdie was just as superb, donning the impaired Nick brilliantly, accounting for Good Time's emotional-center.

Overall, Good Time was a pleasant surprise despite the simplicity of its feebly-paced narrative. It comprises of genre-defining tenets, such as audacious screenplay that spotlights convincing immoralities under duress, plus rousing filmmaking techniques. It is remarkably acted, featuring a breakthrough performance from Pattinson, showcasing his eye-opening, artistic mettle. There is then genuine excitement, for the Safdie brother's future offerings!

I thoroughly enjoyed this film on several levels. The acting, direction and story line were all done extremely well. It was original and there is an element of commitment of love through the forced negative acts of the desperate protagonist.

I also have to say I enjoyed the psychedelic score which worked well with the pace of the film. Last, I grew up in the neighborhood much of the film is shot in so I am somewhat biased. This, however, is not what makes the film so good.

Pattinson is brilliant as the Big brother trying to make a better life for himself and his learning disabled brother. A bank robbery they attempt goes wrong and the remainder of the film is an attempt to recover his brother from a hospital after getting caught and beat up in jail.

I won't give any more away but have to say the film is thought provoking, exciting and fast paced. I also felt it was quite realistically done in the way each character plays their parts.

The only thing I found annoying was the credits ran into 22+ minutes of the film. Otherwise, a tremendous effort and success for the Safdie Brothers.

Robert Pattinson has steered very clear from his Twilight years to give us an impressive resumé of independent films that have scrubbed off his Cullen brand and moulded him into a compelling actor. The Safdie Brother's Good Time is but a testament to his ability, giving us what could be his best performance yet. Two brothers, Connie and Nick Nikas, attempt at a bank robbery but fail and Nick lands in jail. This sets Connie to embark on a desperate and dangerous journey to get his brother out. What seems like a simple premise, quickly descends into a twisted odyssey, offering more than just a casual heist-gone-wrong flick.

Pattinson stuns as Connie Nikas with an approach to the character that will make you ponder on his motivations and lead you to question what he will do next. This is far from anything he has done prior, Connie is unsympathetic, desperate and immoral as he evades the ludicrous situations he finds himself in with but a tinge of luck. The other characters, played splendidly by mostly newcomers, paint a picture of debauchery and excess for New York's underworld, forever maintaining a true level of authenticity that often feels part- 70s arthouse and part- contemporary anthemic.

A large fraction of the success of Good Time is thanks to masterful direction by Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie and a consistently stellar performance from Robert Pattinson. A sleeper hit for 2017, all the more reason to watch it.

Connie (Robert Pattinson) and Nick (Benny Safdie) are low-life brothers in NYC who attempt to rob a bank so that they can buy a farm in Virginia. Things don't go well, and Nick, who is mentally handicapped, gets arrested. Connie then begins a night-long odyssey to try and get his brother free while avoiding the cops himself, running into an assortment of fringe characters along the way. Also featuring Buddy Duress, Taliah Webster, Barkhad Abdi, Peter Verby, Robert Clohessy, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Filmed in a gritty manner with over-saturated colors and a relentless electronic score, once this movie gets started it becomes an adrenaline-fueled marathon of tense situations, with Pattinson's character consistently asked to make split-second decisions that go wrong as often as right. I consider Robert Pattinson one of the least impressive movie stars to have sprung up in the last decade, but he acquits himself well here, grungy, desperate and vulpine. All of the supporting characters are believable, although largely unsavory. I wasn't quite as impressed with the end result as some critics, as I felt that the story stumbled to an unsatisfying conclusion, and nothing really added up to much, with events virtually ending where they began. That may have been the filmmakers point, but the majority of the film is a tense journey that crime film fans should enjoy.