Harsh Times
David Ayer

Ion Martea
posted 16 August 2006

David Ayer had a rather unimpressive debut in Hollywood. His first credits were for co-writing U-571 (2000) and The Fast and the Furious (2001). His absence from the sequel of the latter is rather felt though, as 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) is far below the mediocre level of Cohen's film. However, with Training Day (2001), starring Denzel Washington in an Oscar winning role, Ayer showed that he is capable of producing work that is both challenging and original. The newly released Harsh Times (his first directorial work) confirms that, but also brings a more refined tone, which can only be termed Ayeresque.

Harsh Times is very much a modern Mean Streets (1973), but on this occasion, the friendship between two crooks loses Scorsese's iconoclastic impetus, while gaining a kind of earthly rawness that rings truer to Peckinpah. (Interestingly enough, Ayer is currently in the pre-production stage to remake The Wild Bunch (1969)).

Jim David and Mike Alvarez, played by Christian Bale and Freddy Rodríguez, have been living around the LA slums for most of their lives, and made a subsistence living throughout their teenagehood. But now they are twentysomething and in search of legal employment, not because they dislike their previous work, but merely because both of them have fallen in love, and want to play their cards right at least once. Jim has returned from military action, and discovered refuge in the arms of Marta (Tammy Trull), a Mexican girl living in quiet poverty on the US-Mexican border, waiting to marry Jim in LA. Freddy is in love with Sylvia (Eva Longoria), who wants her boyfriend to be a husband, and not a beggar.

From early on, it is clear that legal employment will not square with the young men's immediate desire to party, have a drink, smoke some hash, or sell guns. At least not in Jim's case; he manages to destroy his friend's plans as easy as he fakes his way to a successful application with the Office of Homeland Security. Jim's war horrors have made him cunning and short-tempered, so the issues that really matter to him (or at least the ones he is trying to convince himself of) become as blurred and irrelevant as if he were drunk. He is the one to make choices though, and these often affect Freddy more then they do him.

Ayer seems to give us a moral story about what truly matters in a friendship. However, he does not seem to be searching for the values most of us would name. It is not trust, protection, truth or justice; it is not even brotherly love. In Harsh Times, friendship is defined simply through time, and it is only a sense of familiarity that makes one cling continuously to that idea that the best friend is a treasure that cannot be lost, irrespective of circumstances. But a childhood buddy is someone you have always acted to, someone to whom you have never really revealed your true self - Jim and Mike are in contact just because there was no one else to turn to.

The horror of Harsh Times is transcendentally sublime, particularly as the moment of truth does not come as a revelation for either of the characters, but as the realisation of an expectation both desired and abhorred. The element unique to Ayer's work is most evident in this instance. The impossibility of malice in a relationship is portrayed only through imminent destruction which acts not as a redemption in the traditional sense, but as a reunification of the self with the other.

In consequence, the dénouement of Harsh Times bears the same weight as the 'happy ending' of Training Day, yet it is more rewarding. The difference lies in the way Ayer constructs his bad hero through tactical casting. If Denzel Washington was the good actor playing the corrupt cop with a rough elegance that is demented to such an extent that we really want his fatal demise, then Christian Bale does something much harder for an actor. Jim, as played by Bale, is even worse than Washington's Alonzo, as his mania is not superficially apparent, but emerges only in a sentimental ego-centrism. In short, he genuinely cares a lot for his friends but is able not to give a fuck about them if he is to blow their brains out. Ironically, in the end, Bale is playing for redemption and we want to see him redeemed. The credit for this does not lie so much with the script, as in the performance. In Harsh Times, Bale delivers one of the most complex performances of any young actors in recent decades, and bearing The Machinist in mind, it is not unfair to say that he is one of the very few forces in American cinema working at present.

Ayer's work is not perfect. It looks more like a rough stone that turns out to be a diamond only on closer inspection. But, a diamond it is. Beyond the ideology, Ayer has a harsh aestheticism that both wins him fans, and provokes heavy criticism of irrelevant and unnecessary violence. Ultimately, this is not everyone's cup of tea, and unfortunately most people will leave with a sour taste in their mouths, unsure whether they liked the film or not. Worse, many will not waste too much time contemplating the issue. The ones who will consider drinking it again may become addicts to a new drug. Let's hope Ayer does not lose his touch too soon.