The Players…
Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie, Buddy Duress, Taliah Webster and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
The Basics…
When Connie’s clever bank heist goes all pear-shaped, his special needs brother Nicky accidentally takes the fall. So from jail to the bail bondsman to the company of strangers Connie tears around New York burning lean tissue into the night to secure Nicky’s bail all the while the loot keeps expanding and retracting as the traffic lights change.
If it sounds complicated, it isn’t. It’s just madness.
The Rant…
Do you ever get the impression that people who are “slow” understand a lot more than they let on?
I understand using the term slow hinges on risking the PC police ramming down my door, but let’s be frank: straight to the point is always best, and special needs could be applied to a junkie as well as a person with trisomy 21. Nothing has done more to pervert communication in America than political correctness and hindering swift communication. You bet your Funk and Wagnalls.
So let’s just keep using the term slow for now without meaning any insult to anyone. Except lousy drivers, you know who you are. No, slow in the intimation that some folks, well, aren’t in a manic hurry to have an idea. Heck, I’ll go you one further. Doesn’t it seem like those who are slow are more thoughtful and deliberate in making up their mind, like not wanting to waste time going off half-cocked? I used to work with a young woman who had Down Syndrome, and was very methodical in getting work done. She was a server assistant at some restaurant, and I regret I can’t recall her name. Unlike the demonstrative, polite even game show host-like demeanor to wait on the guests and perhaps also fluff some egos, server assistants were relegated to the scullery, out of sight and out of mind. They pick up the dirty dishes when the meal is done and eventually haul the bus bin back to the dishwasher. They also reset the table; lay down fresh napkins and forks and whatnot after a thorough wipe down as well as pick up any trash wantonly fell to the floor. Chairs got a wipe, too. Not a glamorous job, but necessary all the same.
This girl—let’s call her Sue—had Down Syndrome. “Slow.” She made far less than the regular servers meaning next to nothing. She was 23 and I learned this was her first job. She had a 9th Grade education and she was a marvel to watch her work.
You see, SAs are the at the very bottom of kitchen hierarchy. The cooks make the food, the servers wait on the guests and the assists are basically the clean up crew. Like I said the job consists of breaking down tables and get them all spiffy again for incoming guests. Lay out fresh flatware, buff the classes to make sure they shine, arrange the plates in the traditional Continental style most restaurants prefer, folding napkins just right, that kind of consideration. Not to mention that almighty, healthy wipe down of the table first, natch. Very direct, very simple and very important. And so often eluded the other SAs who had such a hot nut to dart out to the loading dock for a quick smoke and a Tweet. And me to rightfully get on their ass for shirking.
I had never worked with anyone more deliberate and exacting than someone who was deemed slow that was Sue. She was methodical but not slow, dragging a simple task out. I’d often have to remind Sue to tend to her own tables rather than the rat trap, ramshackle mine collapse a few feet away. It might’ve been her eagerness for those who want to prove their salt, or just do a good job or just simply earn their own money and have a say in how to spend it. You know, like all of us. And every time her tasks were completed she was always quick to tell me, “All set!” Other “normal” servers left me to wondering.
Enough with the Hallmark card moment. It’s a curiosity that people who are “normal” regard the other side with either condescension or childlike good intentions. I’m talking both experts and yahoos like you and you. It’s curious how selected people are capable of seeing a responsibility to carry on as if nothing’s wrong or out of place. Not to sound all treacly but perhaps the slow people are better in touch with reality than others. A simple plan, minus all the horses*t we think is so vital (like that Tweet in your head that might cure rickets if you could spell rickets after all those White Claws). For instance, most of us are not well aquatinted with how to milk a cow, but I guarantee that there’s an autistic out there who never did before but becomes a whiz when listening to the Talking Heads. For a stouter argument how could Asperger’s Syndrome Dan Ackroyd assume the role of Elwood Blues without his trusty police badge in his pocket? Not kidding there. Look it up.
That being said Middle America, a great many slow people and doing pretty good not under a heel, and most don’t want your sympathy. A while back I learned that my g/f was diagnosed by an expert. I mean, come on, her diagnosis was along what her concerns were about balancing her budget to make rent, maintaining proper work relations to earn a raise and binging enough of The Vampire Diaries to zone out after the workday. Traumatizing. How did you spend you summer vacation?
Maybe all those slow people in society actually have the right idea. Hope for the best and worry about the worst when it comes. Saving their dollars for a car one day rather than blowing it on, say, a new PS5. The one with the disc drive. Sue might’ve had Netflix, and would have movie night every Saturday with her girlfriends, binging on the flicks of that month’s heartthrob (Brad Pitt’s always a safe choice, or Cary Grant). No time for workplace gossip; gotta earn some keep. Gotta stock up at Wegmans for Taco Tuesday. DSW is having a sale and some new Danskos are in order lest we slip on the floor.
Myself? I yell at my phone. My eBay auctions aren’t panning out well. Traffic is scary. I’m sick of reading labels on groceries in so doing lying to myself about watching what I eat. My hair’s going grey. Presidential debates. Maybe I need a PS5. The one with the DVD drive, natch.
I’m not f*cking deifying people with special needs. Sure, there are plenty of Sues out there, but just as many people as indignant us who don’t want a pat on the head and a liver snap on their tongue. Nope. Seems to me from what I’ve experienced slow people have a very keen, very fast bullsh*t detectors, honed to a razor’s edge whenever normal life tries to give them a raw deal. They may be childlike, yes, but I never knew a child to shy away from making their demands known and don’t talk down to me. I can do algebra, Dad. You can’t balance your checkbook so you save up for that PS5. Slow folks know what the game’s about and are quick to say so.
Which is why they are such lousy accomplices on a bank heist.
The Story…
Constantine Nikas (Pattinson) is a hood. There’s no other word. He’s not a thug, not a tough, not even a criminal in the traditional sense. Connie’s a hood. A conniver, a schemer, a charlatan. And a loving brother.
Connie’s bro Nicky (Safdie) has special needs. He’s not too swift on the uptake, but quite aware when there’s trouble afoot. Especially when the trouble is in the form of his hood brother.
The trouble Connie’s cooked up is a half-baked scheme to rob a bank. Despite the fact that Connie is whip-smart, he has a hard time figuring out what to do next, in crime and in time. He strong-arms Nicky into being his literal partner in crime. Despite the heist goes off without a hitch, the overly exuberant Connie neglects the fact his brother is slow-witted, as well as having a solid moral compass and ends up screwing the pooch.
Everything goes to sh*t. Nicky lands in jail and is beaten to a pulp. Connie didn’t nab enough cash to make Nicky’s bail. And in all the mix-up Connie abducts Nicky from the hospital only to discover that he kidnapped the wrong patient. Now comes the wheeler-dealer Connie, crusading to scrounge up enough cash by any means possible, including more theft, credit card scamming, doping up security guards and even getting a questionable hairstyle.
All in the name of saving Nicky, who wouldn’t’ve been in the mess it wasn’t for…you know.
The Breakdown…
I’ve the impression that with his Twilght years behind him Robert Pattinson has been trying very hard to shed the sparkly shadow that was Edward. Trying to distance himself from moody, dreamboat status and illustrate he’s no one trick pony. In fact, refute me in saying that Pattison has been very determined to prove himself a serious actor.
Wait, that’s not quite right. The claim of “serious” actors usually entails trading up lightweight roles for dramatic ones. It’s not necessarily the roles that prove or break an upgrade, but the setting. Consider this: Adam Sandler made his bones in the 90s doing infantile, screwball comedies. Some were unintentionally funny, but you can only trip over the ottoman one so many times. Like Tom Hanks learned, Sandler could apply his comic trade into other kinds of movies. Sure, most have been for lacking (EG: Spanglish, Reign Over Me, Funny People, etc). Regardless of what script Sandler was entangled with, he was still Sandler. The actor never changed, just the act. Someone should inform the future Batman that he should give Edward a pat on the back for inviting such an opportunity.
In the interim Pattison has been stretching himself (or perhaps just retooling his acting chops) into roles that Sandler wouldn’t approach with a red hot chili pepper. Pattison has been outright defiant in carving out a niche in the “serious” acting world. Post-Twilight Saga, I’ve caught Pattinson in some very terse and challenging roles. His turns in Cosmopolis, The Lighthouse and here with Good Time are definitely, if not defiantly away from YA vampires vs werewolves a la Montegues vs Capulets soap operas. Then again, you could consider his brooding breakout role might’ve informed his later projects. I say this is fine.
Best way to put it I think. Look, you can go a few routes as an actor with a solid cachet. You could go the Mickey Rourke route, buy a gold-plated Rolls, sell yourself short as Harley Davison, get into boxing, win a one-off award in a semi-biographical indie film and wind up as an Iron Man adversary so obscure that even the most dyed-in-wool Marvel Zombies never even heard of him.
Or…
You could use that cachet for more challenging, interesting roles on indie films to sharpen your chops for audiences that want to see some extra cheese on their pizza. I’m not saying playing against type, mind you. Pattinson’s Connie is just a natural extension of Water For Elephants and The Rover: expect something different every time, but it’s still Pattison. Again, the actor never changed. He morphed into a protean performer who has and is trying at anything. From what I’ve seen, he’s pretty good at delivering.
Which leads to Good Time. It’s Pattinson’s show all the why. It’s a turgid character study to be sure, but it sure is a deceptive one. I don’t mean Connie’s a scoundrel (which he is), and I don’t mean he tries to hoodwink people (though he does), but his motives for knocking over a bank is just not for the hell of it. Well it’s not just that.
To wit, the watchword employed to Good‘s tawdry tale is intrusion. Pattinson’s Connie can’t help but get in the way of things. Leave well enough alone. Like that surly drunk and your favorite bar threatening you over who really knows about peanut butter (the creamy vs chunky debate rages ever onwards). His wingman cools him off and excuses himself to take a leak, and as soon as the bathroom door wheezes shut it’s, “Jif, you motherf*cker!!!” Let it go and leave it alone. Things are going go from bad to dumb to desperate to what else could go wrong?
This may sound like a criminal caper gone wrong, like Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan or the Coen’s Fargo. It is, but not in the way those films lead you. There’s a clear motive, albeit hazy. You gotta pay attention to the cold open and the final scene. More on that later, for at the outset of the movie your focus is on the intrusion and the icky intensity of Connie that feels like a cold lick on the cheek. Almost from the get-go we learn that this is Connie’s show all the way.
Good kinda goes for a 21st Century Taxi Driver feeling. There’s sweat and grit and a palpable sense of dread. Our protagonist invites all this, but does not exactly initiate it. He falls into it, one after another hurdle to rescue Nicky that he falls victim too and has to clamber a way out if it only get tripped up again and again, patching up the dike as the storm seethes. Connie may be driven and clever, but keeping his eyes on the prize results in some scathing criminal activity. We’re talking major cringey here. I felt like facepalming many times over the course of Good but I didn’t. Why? Not sure. I was unable to quit rubbing my face while watching. Again, why was that? Tension? Embarrassment? Defeat? Perhaps getting caught up in the twisted life Pattinson imbued into Connie tricked me that he was a decent guy forced to do whatever it takes to set things right.
Nah. Connie’s a hood, and his motives are highly personal. Read: selfish. You can be selfish for the right reason, though. Even if you’re not aware. I felt that Connie was all too aware from the get go; he has a conscience and he hates it. His only redeeming quality is his dedication to his slow bro Nicky (who in fact may be nothing more than the Maguffin here). I felt that such dedication came at a price. Ever read Of Mice And Men? Or see a screen adaptation I recommend the version starring Sinise and Malkovich)? Good has an overarching feel of the frantic George trying to reign in the sweet, oafish brother Lannie who also has special needs and a certain strength that invites trouble. Nicky didn’t invite it, but he expected it, and here comes best bro Connie. The best laid plans, which may be why Nicky REDACTED in the opening scene as Connie interrupted his appointment. Also consider the final scene where Nicky is back at another appointment having to come to terms with his REDACTED and it’s all right to express yourself out loud.
So. That’s the major chunk of how if not for Pattinson, Good could’ve come across rote like some dissonant crime capers do. Think Woody Allen’s kinda dorky directorial debut film Take The Money And Run or Harold Ramos’ clunky The Ice Harvest, both trying to be clever and trying too hard. Good‘s not a comedy, though. Not in the conventional sense. Good is a true comedy of errors, where payback is always a bitch and someone always gets hurt. Often the wrong people.
One more thing before we wrap this up. It’s regarding The Standard, which I haven’t mentioned in quite a while. Figured all nine of you already read homepage. One of the tenets of The Standard is a movie’s overall poor box office takeaway (domestic) that gets the standard substandard RIORI treatment. But I’ve been thinking: does limited engagement really warrant that part? Earnings aren’t everything. Yes, I know Good was an indie, but…
Maybe I should rethink my drink. Until then, I understand using the term poor hinges on risking the indie director’s guild ramming down my door, but let’s be frank…
The Verdict…
Rent it or relent it? Rent it. Unlike the dour solo performance in Cosmopolis, the vivid misadventure with Good really let’s Pattinson flex his thespian muscles. Without any gold-plating.
The Musings…
- “What’re you thinking about?” “Nothing.”
- Nice earrings. Hoops to studs. Gotta mix it up, y’know?
- “I gotta come clean to you ’bout something.” Riiight.
- What? No 555?
- “Don’t be confused. It’s just gonna make it worse for me.”
- Was that EMT smoking? Sets the tone of the entire movie right there, “F*ck this…”
- “It’s been a big f*cking night!”
The Next Time…
“Thunderbirds are go! F-A-B!”
What the heckin’ all that even mean?