The Ice Harvest

©2005, Focus Features. All Rights Reserved.

 
John Cusack can make virtually any film character likable. Take for instance a character like Charlie Arglist from his newest film, “The Ice Harvest.” Cusack plays a lowlife mob lawyer who has plenty of flaws to go with his redeeming qualities. In the course of the film Charlie spends Christmas Eve alternating between bars and strip clubs; lying, cheating, stealing, and killing along the way…and yet he still manages to find time to buy his daughter a few worthless Christmas gifts at gas station after having all done that. The funny thing is, if you’re not rooting for Charlie each step of the way, you’re probably the only one in the theater that isn’t.

The story opens in the present with Charlie scanning the frozen plains near Wichita, Kansas while he waxes philosophical about the possibility of pulling of the perfect crime. As the film flashes back to the previous day in which the story unfolds you’ll soon realize that Charlie’s definition of “perfect” is about as accurate as that of a drunken frat boy wearing beer googles.

Charlie has conspired with a sleazy strip club owner named Vic (Billy Bob Thornton) to embezzle over two million dollars from Kansas City mob boss Bill Guerrard (Randy Quiad). Due to frequent showers of freezing rain the two decide to stay in Wichita until morning before blowing town with the loot. As they part ways Vic drops Charlie off at yet another local strip club and tells him to “act normal,” which says a lot about what Charlie does on a normal day.

Things start to get complicated when Charlie stops acting normally, which other people notice due to his unusual generosity. Within moments he comps a strippers stage fee and he exchanges lighthearted innuendo-laden banter with another local strip club owner Renata (Connie Nielsen). Charlie offers to help her get her hands on a photo of a local councilman tagging a stripper for the ever-so-noble purpose of blackmail. Just when Charlie starts to think that he might get through the night unscathed things are further complicated by the unexplained appearance of Guerrard’s bad-ass enforcer Roy Gelles, who shows up at strip club after strip club looking for both he and Vic.

Charlie panics and corners Vic at a restaurant. Vic seems unfazed in the slightest, while Charlie is beside himself with anxiety. Vic takes a cryptic cell-phone call and leaves Charlie in the restaurant where another complication in the form of old friend and husband to Charlie’s ex-wife Pete Van Heuten (Oliver Platt). Pete, as luck would have it, is most annoyingly drunk and Charlie winds up spending much of his night driving him around town…only to witness Pete embarrass and insult every one of his family members, vomit in his car, and get kicked in the balls for hitting on a waitress.

Clearly Charlie has a lot on his plate.

I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by revealing that the characters in this film double, triple, and quadruple cross one another in order to get the loot. Given that these characters have essentially no integrity whatsoever, this should not come as a surprise to anyone. I saw these crosses coming from miles away, but I was too busy chuckling to care.

As we all know by know, Billy Bob Thornton can play sleazy in his sleep. His sleaze-factor is so high that in “Monster’s Ball” his mere presence in a sex scene starring a nude Halle Berry is able to cause retinal damage. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the ever-beautiful Connie Nielsen oozes with manipulative sexuality, aided by both film-noir lighting and a befuddled yet wonderful portrayal by John Cusack. Oliver Platt, as the pleasantly plump and obnoxiously toasted Pete, plows through this film—he steals scene after scene and provides humor at regular intervals. Good old Randy Quaid (who judging by his size is nearly ready to be launched into the air at this Thursday’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade) plays a pretty poor mob boss, but given the fact that a couple of losers like Charlie and Vic manage steal his money, this should come as no surprise.

Along with the pitch-perfect acting, Harold Ramis’ direction is commendable. Ramis is the man behind both the comedic brilliance of “Groundhog Day” and the cringe-inducing cinematic-feces otherwise known as “Bedazzled.”

Here he is faced with the task of weaving a comedic thread through a sometimes quite violent crime story, and he succeeds nicely. When the film gets violent, which it frequently does, Ramis always gives us something to laugh at. Gallows humor abounds in this film, whether it’s a body being stuffed into a trunk as awkwardly as possible, Cusack tossing his cookies at the sight of a severed finger or a stone-cold killer being drowned by a dead body—played effectively for laughs. With “The Ice Harvest,” Harold Ramis has crafted a clever and witty film, and his cast, anchored by John Cusack, make this an enjoyable night at the movies.

The Ice Harvest • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Running Time: 88 minutes • MPAA Rating: R for violence, language and sexuality/nudity. • Distributed by Focus Features