The Ice Harvest
Picture: B
Sound: B- Extras: C Film: C
Comic actor Harold Ramis is behind the camera again
directing, this time with the heist comedy The Ice Harvest (2005), but
even his fine cast cannot overcome a sense of frivolity and déjà vu from the
surprisingly bad Richard Russo/Robert Benton screenplay. John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton play
friends who just robbed a few million dollars.
Of course, that kind of cash will test their relationship, but they are
good for now. However, the money is
stolen from some organized crime types and they are going to have to be very
clever in order to hold onto it and spend it.
Unfortunately, what starts out as a potentially serious,
smart and interesting situation quickly digresses into a wasting of some top
talent (also starring Randy Quaid, Connie Nielsen and Oliver Platt way out of
his element) with some of the most infantile non-stop dialogue we have run into
for a long time. The big problem may be
that comedy director Ramis (Analyze This, Analyze That, Groundhog
Day) does not know whether to play it as a comedy, dark comedy or comic
drama. The resulting confusion creates
an amazing mess that just gets worse and worse.
Saddest of all is if Ramis had just eliminated the
dialogue that made all of this seem unrealistic, infantile and stupid, then
played it more seriously with touches of comedy, the resulting tension and
great actors he had would have created a really good film. As I watched, it was like a 100 vehicle
pile-up slowly happening on the cinematic superhighway. That makes The Ice Harvest one of the
biggest missed opportunities in a while.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is surprisingly
good for a film that likes to have purposely toned down color. It is likely because this is one of the
first films Universal wants intends to issue in the new HD-DVD format that this
one looks so good, but cinematographer Alar Kavilo, A.S.C., C.S.C., cannot
avoid being haunted by The Coen Brothers’ Fargo any more than the
screenplay can. The Dolby Digital 5.1
mix is not bad, with dialogue that is recorded clearly enough. Extras include director Ramis’ audio
commentary, outtakes, two alternate endings that did not make a difference and
three featurettes.
- Nicholas Sheffo
