Good Time (2017)

Most people (girls) love Robert Pattinson for having played Edward, the vampire in the Twilight Saga. I love him (okay, maybe love is too big of a verb) for him choosing to work in movies like David Michôd's The Rover, or David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis, or the Safdie brothers' Good Time. These are the movies that allow him to showcase his acting skills. And that's the reason I decided to watch Good Time.

Connie (Robert Pattinson) involves his mentally disabled brother, Nick (Benny Safdie) in a bank robbery that is supposed to be a clean and easy job. Instead, things go wrong, Nick is arrested and ends up in Rikers Island prison. Driven by the love for his brother, Connie embarks on a nightmarish quest to get Nick out of prison.

Having not seen any of the Safdie brothers' movie, I did not know what to expect. To be honest, I was expecting another heist-gone-wrong kind of movie that leaves you with that already-seen-before feeling. It's not the case with Good Time. This film indeed has an interesting, thrilling and captivating story that goes beyond the crime genre. It's a story about love, a toxic love a young man has for his brother and, while it takes some illogical and unrealistic turns, it still manages to feel real and, in the end, we also want what is best for Nick. 

The greatest element in this film is arguably the interesting character of Connie. He is a short-tempered psychopath who leaves a trail of destruction behind him. He has an aggressive but sincere love for his brother and really wants to take care of him and protect him. The problem? He can't even take care of himself and therefore he ends up endangering the life of his brother. In other words, he is a scumbag. Normally, it should be very hard if not impossible to root for such a disgraced human being and yet there's something about this unlikable character that makes you root for him. I guess one of the reasons is Robert Pattinson's sublime performance. He gives his everything. He really owns the character and delivers Connie's desperation, rage and frenzy in every single scene. The dialogue is pretty shitty, but Pattinson doesn't need it, his facial and body expressions are enough.

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The supporting cast is also worthy of a mention. Benny Safdie does a good job as Nick, the mentally disabled brother. Jennifer Jason Leigh does fine in her brief scene as Connie's neurotic ex-girlfriend, and Buddy Duress and Barkhad Abdi also provide a good support.

And well done Safdie brothers for setting such a frenetic pace from start to finish but most of all for shooting a lot of scenes using only 'natural' lighting such as streetlights, cellular lights and so on and using such bright neon colours that fit the movie well.

Good Time has one huge problem though, the score. While it enhances the intensity of the story, Daniel Lopatin's electronic score is too loud and kind of ruins the film as it makes nearly impossible in some scene to understand what the actors are saying.