Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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43 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Noir and Noel and Nuance: Excellent Movie, Entertaining Backstory, March 2, 2006
This is more than just another last-man-standing suitcase-full-of-money movie.
John Cusack plays an everyman, a lawyer who has sold out to the values of corporate corruption. With mixed feelings, he steals over two million dollars from the local mob on Christmas Eve, then plans with Billy Bob Thornton to make a break for it later on Christmas Day.
The mob boss (Randy Quaid) finds out and sends a hit man to get his money back, and the movie plot is about John Cusack trying to avoid getting killed by them.
The movie has been pretty much panned by almost every critic to review it, although Roger Ebert praised it enough for three stars. I loved it and loved the book before it. I realize that I am in a small minority in this regard.
What makes THE ICE HARVEST work for me is its noir blend of saltiness and satire, its mixture of comedy and karma.
The comedy here is based upon the hypocrisy of Christmas in this era of corruption and greed. All of the liars and killers and thieves in this movie talk about Christmas, about being home opening up presents with their kids. If you don't get that, I guess you won't see the comedy. It is nice that it is set in Wichita, Kansas, especially if you have read Thomas Frank's WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?
The opening graffiti above the urinal, "As Wichita Falls Falls, So Falls Wichita Falls," is a repeated line of jazz that caused an existential crisis for the film's French translator who had trouble distinguishing between "falls" as a noun and "falls" as a verb with a misplaced execution, Wichita Falls not being in Kansas but in Texas.
The author of this blood red graffiti is not revealed until the end of the film, at which time its coded karmic message seems clear, "what goes around, comes around," or "as ye sow, so shall ye reap."
The backstory segments are generous and entertaining, including a segment where the movie is discussed by book author Scott Phillips and the screenplay authors, Robert Benton and Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo, author of STRAIGHT MAN and EMPIRE FALLS.
John Cusack is endearing as an everyman who has gone too far with a fantasy and now is just trying to survive.
Billy Bob Thornton is menacing as Vic. His idea of winning is the American way, giving lip-service to religion and humanist values while embracing ruthless materialism.
Oliver Platt plays a jolly-faced loser, John Cusack's hapless doppeldinger, addicted to sexual conquests and alcohol, now married to Cusack's former wife. He seems to be an extention of the drunks who played in GROUNDHOG DAY.
Connie Nielsen vamps it up, a cross between Lauren Bacall and Veronica Lake. She's a tribute to a different era, like the femme fatale in WHO'S AFRAID OF ROGER RABBIT?, not really bad, just drawn that way. The book fills the character out more and speculates more on her background as an abused woman who learned how to survive, a hardened refugee from the war in Bosnia.
Randy Quaid is terrific as a capitalistic Christian mob boss murderer, sad to be doing business when he could be home celebrating Christ's birthday.
This movie has fun poking fun, with style and karma, with a moral and a motto. As Jon Stewart says, "IN GOD WE TRUST" is our motto, and we place it where it can be read on every dollar bill in this film, "right where Jesus would have wanted it."
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Why are so many people down on this flick?, February 7, 2006
As a fan of John Cusack, and a fan of FARGO-ish dark caper comedies, this was a perfect combo -- lean, smart, and entertaining. I have no idea why so many people seem to LOATHE this movie.
This is easily the best flick Cusack has been in since 2000's HIGH FIDELITY and the wait was painful. His character is a bit of a throwback to his role in THE GRIFTERS, but with a hint of additional warmth.
Admittedly, this movie was marketed all wrong. Advertising this Coen-brothers-like neo-noir as being from "The director of GROUNDHOG DAY and CADDYSHACK" is like advertising MUNICH as being from "The director of 1941 and JAWS." Sure, it's true, but it gives people the wrong expectation.
I say, give it a shot.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Subtle and Cool, April 2, 2006
"As Wichita falls, so falls Wichita falls." What does it mean? Nothing really, and that's the point. As director Harold Ramis said, existentialists teach that life is meaningless, we're all going to die, but, we are responsible for our actions. This is, in a way, a very existential film. One of the alternate endings of the film ends with a great line: People are what they do, but most people don't do anything. So what are they? "Nothing," of course, being the implied answer. The Ice Harvest is witty, hilarious, yet very serious. It is NOT light comedy, and is actually pretty philosophical. Though it was (perhaps unfortunately) advertised as a caper comedy (which it is not), The Ice Harvest is really film noir; in fact, it's film noir at its finest. The movie is only funny if you like your comedy pitch black, without any cream or sugar (and I do). The people in this film are all flawed, corrupt, and dishonest. This is contrasted throughout the film with the fact that it's set during Christmas, making for a very intentional and strong message concerning the hypocrisy in America. Though so many believe the contrary, religiosity is not correlated with being an ethical person. As one man says in the film, people in Wichita are Christians, to which Platt's character replies "Yeah, and half of `em are in this bar tryin to get laid." Wichita is portrayed as being both very, uber Christian, filled with "Jesus freaks," and as being extremely corrupt. Though the movie was filmed in a suburb of Chicago, as Ramis insisted on filming near his home city, it is rumored that the city of Wichita, where I happen to live, did not want them to film here anyway as they (city council I presume) did not want "that" kind of publicity. This is to me highly ironic as The Ice Harvest actually ended up making Wichita look A LOT nicer than it really is. The use of Christmas music as a backdrop to such shady goings on was clever. Extrapolating off what Scott Philips said in an interview, though Christmas music is supposed to be joyous it actually makes many adults feel lousy, as it reminds them of one of the most stressful, hectic, hypocritical, and maddening times of the year. In the film, Charlie, played by John Cusack, is a man that always takes the route of least resistance. Everyone in his environment is one up on him in some way. He's really kind of a dupe. But then a friend of his, a poor, psychologically homeless loser, gets philosophical, telling Charlie that there's nothing left for men in America, nothing but women and money. Men can't act like men anymore; it's been socialized out of us. Perhaps because of this, Charlie snaps out of his frozen limbo, which he's been floating in for years, and in a way "becomes a man," and yes, there are pancakes in heaven. In one of the original endings of the film, as stated above, Vic points out that most people, existentially, are nothing. Vic and Charlie's "crime" then can be framed as an attempt to break free from the morass, from the passive, unacting, nonliving herd, and define themselves, much like the truck drivers in The Wages of Fear. This, however, was unfortunately cut from the film. Though it shouldn't have been, the ending the film stuck with is by far my favorite. What would have been even better is if they'd stuck with the current ending AND included the flashback dialogue between Vic and Charlie. That, would've been swell. Still though, this is one slick and subtle film, underrated, and underappreciated.
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