tek's rating: ½

The Ice Harvest (R)
Focus Features; IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes; Universal; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Movies Anywhere; Peacock; Vudu; YouTube

Okay... so, this is set on New Year's Eve, in Wichita, Kansas. There's these two guys, Charlie Arglist (John Cusack) and Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton), who have stolen over two million dollars from a mob boss named Bill Guerrard. Charlie is a lawyer who works for Bill, and Vic... I dunno. Whatever. Um... most of the movie is about Charlie driving around to different places around town (mainly strip clubs). He and Vic have a plan to meet up later, after the icy rain is supposed to stop, and leave town with the money. Meanwhile, Vic is holding onto it, and Charlie is just supposed to be going about his business as usual, I guess. But there's a friend of his, who's married to his ex-wife, and who's currently very drunk, and Charlie has to help him out. And there's a woman named Renata (Connie Nielsen)... I don't really know what she does. Owns one of the clubs, maybe, but she seems kind of like a lawyer, herself. I guess not, though. And... man, there are just all these different subplots going on with different characters. It's kind of interesting to get a real sense of what Charlie's life is like. You get the sense that... he's like a real person, basically, with this whole kind of backstory or whatever. He's basically a nice guy, in spite of being involved with a lot of terrible people, and having clearly made some very bad choices. Including the fact that he really wants to be with Renata, who's clearly a femme fatale.

So, listen, I don't really want to give any more details. But there's a fair amount of violence and generally seedy stuff, in the movie. It can be funny and maybe kinda scary and stuff. And like I said, interesting. But mostly just... depressing. And I'd almost say tedious, but not in an unentertaining way. It really is a decent movie, but... I dunno. It just makes crime seem pretty unglamorous, and not fun. (Unlike some movies.) And... I really have no desire to ever watch the movie again.


film noir index