Title – Good Time (2017)

Directors – Benny & Josh Safdie (Heaven Knows What)

Cast – Robert Pattinson, Buddy Duress, Taliah Webster, Benny Safdie, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Barkhad Abdi

Plot – After a heist goes wrong, Connie Nikas (Pattinson) must attempt to rescue his handicapped brother Nick (Safdie) from hospital after his taken into police custody setting in motion a night Connie would rather forget.

“This place where we are now, it can be a lot of fun if you let it. You’re gonna have a good time”

Review by Eddie on 27/03/2018

Paced in a similar tempo and style to a film like Run Lola Run or even to a lesser extent Jason Statham’s hyperactive actioner Crank, Good Time see’s Edward Cullen not having a particularly fun night out after himself and his handicapped brother attempt a botched bank robbery and then Pattinson’s Connie breaks the wrong guy out of hospital to extend his woes.

Written and directed by sibling duo Benny and Josh Safdie (of which Benny also stars as Connie’s brother Nick), Good Time is a relentlessly paced and frenetic experience heightened by a sense of constant threat and foreboding and an at times over intrusive score by Oneohtrix Point Never and the Safdie brother’s film is one that certainly can’t be accused of playing out by the rulebook as this thriller with a difference is constantly engaging throughout, even if it doesn’t have a that special something to elevate it to the next level.

From the moment the Safdie’s throw us into the plight of Connie and Nick and their messed up lives we can tell things aren’t going to go smoothly for the duo and likely won’t go smoothly in the future either. It’s that typical hard luck style of crime thriller where a collection of not overly bad people are just trying to break free from their tough luck lives but the Safdie’s aren’t concerned with exploring these characters too much as we’re instead taken on a wild night out with Pattinson’s Connie as he tries to right the wrongs his responsible for.

It’s another impressively committed turn from Pattinson (peroxided hair and all) who couldn’t have been doing much more in the years since Twilight to shed that teen heartthrob image that franchise created for him.

His in almost every scene of the film and carries with him the energy and intensity the film required of him and while the characters that appear around him such as the glaringly over the top Buddy Duress as fresh out of jail criminal Ray feel sub-par and misplaced and the narrative choices the Nikas brothers make don’t always ring true, Pattinson holds steady and is a major reason why Good Time ends up being the solid thriller that it is.

Final Say –

An energetic and fast-paced thriller with a strong sense of visuals and uniqueness of tone, Good Time may not always make the right calls but held down by an impressive Pattinson turn, this is a film that marks the Safdie’s as filmmakers with a bright future ahead of them and ends up as one of last years more impressive independent offerings.

3 White Castle food stops out of 5