John Cusack can't play bad guys. It never works. He can play slimey characters, like in True Colors, but he's still got a charm that makes him likeable. Rather it was as a hitman in Grosse Pointe Blank, a con man in The Grifters, or a juror trying with a personal agenda in The Runaway Jury, you want to root for him, because he's played underdog heroes in movies like Better Off Dead, The Sure Thing, Say Anything..., and One Crazy Summer.
Pushing 40 years old, the only physical change in him over the 20 plus years of acting in nearly 50 movies seems to be his hair. At one point, in The Ice Harvest, when his estranged young daughter runs to him and hugs his leg, it doesn't first compute that he is at that age to be a father.
Harvest is the tenth movie directed by Harold Ramis. It has its comedic moments in Oliver Platt, as a horny and lewd drunk, but Ramis has switched gears and made a movie that is an homage to film noirs of the 1940's.
Cusack plays Charles Arglist, a Wichita lawyer for mobster Bill Guerrard (Randy Quaid.) On Christmas Eve, he and an associate Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton) who works in the pornography market, decide to steal over $2 million from Guerrard. Heist movies never really tell the audience about the actual robberies, but more about the aftermaths in which everyone is double-crossing each other. We are never told their robbery scheme, but notice that it involves walking out of a bank with a large withdrawl during business hours. I guess, the philosophy behind the robbery is, withdrawl the money in late afternoon on Christmas Eve. The next day will be a holiday and the money won't be reported missing until Dec. 26, at what time, it will be too late.
However, it's not that easy. Within an hour or so of the withdrawl, one of Guerrard's henchmen, Roy Gelles, played by Mike Starr, is looking for Charles and Vic. At the same time, Charles is trying to woo Renata (Connie Nielsen looking like Rita Hayworth, as seductive as Veronic Lake and as diabolicle Lana Turner) who manages a strip joint. Watching Cusack act like a little school boy around Renata reminds us that he is still a good guy, deep down, even though he drinks too much.
Platt comes in the movie as Pete Van Heuten, who is now married to Charles' ex-wife. While trying to remain calm with a henchman chasing him, as well as the suspicious that Vic is going to double-cross him, Charles must also baby sit Van Heuten who is so drunk he hits on a female barkeep and disrupts his wife's dinner with the in-laws, which he conveniently isn't at.
Charles's early teenage son despise him. His daughter adores him. He had been too busy with planning the heist that he forgot to buy the kids Christmas gifts. This leads to a last minute shop at a Citgo gas station.
To give any more away would be too much. Of course, people who have seen film noirs probably know where it's headed. Let me just say that Charles pulls a Dick Cheney on a major character with a shotgun.
The Ice Harvest is short, under 90 minutes, and violent. At one point, Nielsen's Renata has to wash the blood and brains out of her hair. Thornton is used well even though he appears less than the movie's billing would have you believe. However, it's Nielsen who steals the show. She can read right through Charles and tells her barkeep to get him a drink, knowing he will accept it even though he doesn't like it. She pulls off one of the best femme fatale roles. It's a shame she wasn't nominated for an Academy Award.
The Ice Harvest should have been marketed better than a dark comedy, but this is much more of a darker movie.
Even though it was filmed in Illinois, the tone is Kansas. At one point, Charles is standing on the side of a road after the rain as turned to ice and he looks like he's going to be blown over by the wind. That's what its like out here in the Plains. The scene is also metaphorical for Charles stranded in a cold, barren world all alone.
The Ice Harvest was one of the best movies of 2005 that never got the attention it needed.
Check it out!
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