David Ayer you are becoming one of my favorite directors, also writing and co producing this film, after I dug this out from the past. Harsh Times brings to life intense situations narrated with engaging personalities unique to their settings, like in his other movies such as Fury, Bright, and Suicide Squad.
This movie is about inner city "harsh times." Jim Davis (Christian Bale) is a former Army Ranger trying to relocate and get a decent job. His streets are too tough and he lives them rougher with PTSD. Ayer entertains us through Jim's job interview processes. His friends are caricatures of some you might know. There's Mike Alonzo (Freddy Rodriguez), who is the gullible, but faithful, one trying to hold onto his explosive friend even if it means leaving his hot "old lady," Sylvia (Eva Longoria). Toussant (Brown university's Chaka Forman) is that crazy party animal down for any last minute craziness. Well, they go all over L.A.'s ghettoes and wind up in T.J., where Jim's fiancee lives in a classic paisano shack by the water. They go on a drunk road trip, tempers flare, and guns get involved when their adrenaline peaks.
Christian Bale continued to refine his bad guy role begun in American Psycho (2000). He plays a great 'homie.' He is more of a bad boy; the kind that you hope makes it. Jim goes from one extreme to another. His Mexican girlfriend, Martha (Tammy Trull), adds even more reality to barrio life, seems plucked right out of pleasant memories. Ayer had to live in South Central, as I did, for his characters to be so real.
Just a few drawbacks...The film fails to identify PTSD as the main villain, not hood rats. That would've raised so much awareness to the cause. Also, it's not explained how Jim, being Anglo, is so caught up in South Central L.A. and T.J. It didn't really matter, hood life has overlapped into mainstream, but it still leaves a big gap in the narrative. I leave this on the Winning 25 yd. Line.
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