Good Time

Written on September 26th, 2024 by A. M. Alcazar

This review also includes *Uncut Gems spoilers*

Commenting on a Safdie brothers’ film is a delicate balance act. On the one hand, they are incredibly exciting, bringing about a cinema (and New York) as lively and relentless as that of the 70s. Much of the framing and blocking conveys this. One can’t go to far without feeling as if Scorsese or Lumet had a long-lost colleague who hid out until the 2010s. This imprint (i.e. the look, sound, and feel) has even carried over to their work outside of cinema (The Rehearsal).

At the same time it is wonderfully exciting and waves at you the flag of reminiscence and nostalgia only to then remind you it was always its very own thing, then somehow it manages to inspire in me enough concern that it is going to fumble the ball. I had a similar reaction watching Uncut Gems where the wild drive of the movie was almost sucked dry by what almost seemed a cliche: the bad guy was someone in our protagonist’s close circle. I would suspect that when one watches an “all-out movie”, he or she does not expect to make this almost commonplace decision.

Similarly here, Good Time hits the brakes (at a similar point in the story) in what seems the reverse of “throwing caution to the wind” and reins the story back in. I’d say, though, I believe this is true structurally not tonally. In other words, the story deserts its daring nature and adopts more traditional tropes which felt to me like some sort of sleight of hand. For instance, the only way it manages to cope with its relentless nature is to include new characters rather than invest further in what we have been presented with already. Devising new story elements or structures would have also kept the second half of the film more in line with the first.

This being said, did I enjoy it? Yes. Will I watch it again? Fuck, yes.

Originally published on Letterboxd.