Synopsis
Jim Davis is an ex-Army Ranger who finds himself slipping back into his old life of petty crime after a job offer from the LAPD evaporates. His best friend is pressured by his girlfriend Sylvia to find a job, but Jim is more interested in hanging out and making cash from small heists, while trying to get a law enforcement job so he can marry his Mexican girlfriend.
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Cast
- Christian BaleJim Luther Davis
- Freddy RodríguezMike Alonzo
- Eva LongoriaSylvia
- Chaka FormanToussant
- Tammy TrullMarta
- J.K. SimmonsAgent Richards
- Michael MonksAgent Hollenbeck
- Samantha EstebanLetty
- Tania VerafieldPatty
- Noel GugliemiFlaco
Recommendations
- 83
Entertainment Weekly
Bale is mesmerizing and Rodriguez keeps up with him as the whole unsafe contraption zooms. - 75
ReelViews
Harsh Times occasionally echoes "Taxi Driver," Ayer's own "Training Day," and even "First Blood" in the way it examines the psychological disintegration of a character and the seduction of amorality. - 67
The A.V. Club
Ayer gets lost in a maze of ironies, and has to bulldoze his way to an exit. For a while, Harsh Times is thrillingly hard to predict. By the end, it becomes all too easy. - 63
Chicago Tribune
Harsh Times, is almost a good, salty urban thriller. - 60
Variety
A psychotic seizure of a performance by Christian Bale dominates Harsh Times, the directorial debut of David Ayer that channels "Taxi Driver." - 58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Well-intentioned but not very well directed, it makes for a better psychological profile than a film. - 50
The Hollywood Reporter
The film's unrelenting bleakness and misanthropic tone is likely to be a turnoff to mainstream performances, but it provides its lead actor with another opportunity to display his riveting intensity. - 50
The New York Times
Mr. Bales's spectacular technical performance of a toxic bad boy on the fast track to hell somehow lacks an inner core.
