| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 20, 2008

A crazy little film, modest in its scope but grand in its ambition. It paints it's story in loud primary colors, with intense pressure cooker characterizations.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 5, 2008

HARSH TIMES is a portrait of a male-dominated world and inChristian Bale's fierce performance, Ayer has found the perfect actor. It's just unfortunate that the screenplay feels like a left-over from an era that has passed.

| Original Score: C | Jul 14, 2007

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 14, 2007

A movie that seems gritty and pointless for its first third, begins to grow in meaning as the pointlessness snowballs into absurdity and then tragedy.

| Mar 27, 2007

It's an amazing performance, one of the best of the year, with Bale truly making you believe in this over-the-top character.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2007

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 27, 2007

Por alguns instantes, o filme parece ter algo relevante a dizer sobre a desumanizao provocada pela guerra ou o niilismo de uma gerao entediada e descrente, mas constatamos que quer apenas chocar, desperdiando as timas atuaes de Bale e Rodriguez.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 29, 2006

A gritty, automobile-intensive, buddy flick rather reminiscent of director David Ayer's similarly amoral Training Day.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 25, 2006

Harsh Times is dark and brutal, not the kind of film that lures a large audience or garners awards, although it deserves both.

| Dec 4, 2006

The mix of black humor and pitiless drama makes for a very effective cinematic slow burn

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 25, 2006

Harsh Times wins in the end by keeping its fingers wrapped tightly around its viewers' throats.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 25, 2006

Jim Davis (Christian Bale) may be the most aggressively self-destructive character since Johnny Boy Civello in 'Mean Streets.'

| Original Score: C+ | Nov 19, 2006

None of these characters are the least bit likeable, and that's the fault of David Ayer, who structures the film as a series of mostly disconnected episodes with a single theme:

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 18, 2006

Ayer has a feel for the grimy underside of urban life...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 16, 2006

Harsh Times is an hour-by-hour diary of two crazy, unreliable, irresponsible dudes trying to find a way to fit into the same society they hate, facing one hurdle after another until they appear to butcher half of Los Angeles.

Full Review | Nov 15, 2006

We don't like the view from this dark place, but is that a flaw or precisely the point?

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 15, 2006

Bale's wild-eyed menace keeps you watching for a time, but by the grisly end he's just another American psycho.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Nov 14, 2006

"Harsh Times" is a tragedy whose finale is obvious right from the start.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 14, 2006

As a character study it lacks characterization, and it's too predictable to be an effective cautionary tale.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 14, 2006