The Ice Harvest

The Ice Harvest is a black comedy about two guys, played by John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton, and their attempt to rip off 2 million dollars from a mobster on Christmas Eve. For those who believe the advertising campaigns billing The Ice Harvest as the next Bad Santa you will probably be disappointed. Though The Ice Harvest does include Billy Bob Thornton and a lot of cursing, there the resemblance ends. Bad Santa was a gross-out Christmas comedy for the adults that was a laugh riot. The Ice Harvest is more of a drama. The characters are no less pathetic but they are presented in a way that raises pity instead of guffaws. In this the advertising campaign has been misleading. It is also misleading to think that this is a John Cusack / Billy Bob Thornton buddy comedy directed by Harold Ramis. True all three were involved, but though the preview shows both Cusack and Thornton standing around a footlocker this film is much more about Cusack’s sleazy lawyer Charlie Arglist. Thornton’s porn king Vic Cavanaugh is a more supporting character than the previews would have you believe. And for those looking for a Harold Ramis family classic like Groundhog Day think again, this harkens back more to his days in R-rated comedies like Stripes.

None if this means that The Ice Harvest isn’t good. The Ice Harvest is an enjoyable and well made dark comedy, it is just not really what it has been billed to be. Thus viewers may come out of the theater slightly let down. This means that The Ice Harvest is one of those films that gets better on review, it seems like a better movie five days after seeing it more than it does five minutes after seeing it. So the film probably has some staying power for those with a dark sense of humor.

The expression ‘film noir’ has been overused and really only refers to a small number of dark films made immediately after the Second World War. The only thing that films that try to evoke that kind of ‘man out of his element surrounded by dark forces beyond his control’ can be called these days is pseudo-noir. The Ice Harvest is more of a pseudo-noir than it is a comedy though it has some of the offbeat characterizations more akin to Fargo than a classic film noir. It follows crooked lawyer Charlie Arglist on a Christmas Eve in Witchita right after he has stolen 2 million dollars from his employer, a mob boss played with surprising restraint by Randy Quaid. Charlie and his partner Vic are in a holding pattern waiting for the icy rain to stop falling so that they can leave town.

John Cusack has made quite a career playing the weary everyman. Though some of his more recent films have not played to his strengths, here his hangdog fatalism and neurotic reflection suit the character to a T. For who else has the right to indulge neuroses and stumble half drunk through strip clubs and yet still seem like a nice guy than a mob lawyer who just did the wrong thing and is waiting for the hammer to fall. Arglist travels from one barely controlled situation to the next trying to avoid the mob muscle looking for him and keeping tabs on his shady partner Vic. His travels even bring him into contact with his ex-wife and her family as they sit down to Christmas dinner in a scathingly cold and uncomfortable scene. Permeating the film is the noir truth that there are no good guys. Cops want to be on the good side of the local mobsters, stripers don’t have hearts of gold, and noble sacrifice is unheard of by the people that populate this shady city. But in a world of unseemly characters Arglist is the most noble and the most likeable and this allows the audience to cheer him on to get away with the goods and the girl even if he has to leave behind a trail of bodies on the way.

Billy Bob Thornton plays Vic, Charlie’s partner in crime. Vic is Thornton’s oft seen cinematic alter ego. He is a crude lout with more balls than brains who drinks heavily, curses profusely, and doesn’t shrink from using violence. Though Vic needs Charlie’s help in committing the scheme he seems to be the pro when it comes to getting away with it. Vic treats Charlie like a child telling him to keep his cool for one evening and dispatching the hitman that is sent after them. But Vic doesn’t emerge as a fully described character. Vic has a wife he doesn’t really like and a business running strip joints but he has no real motivation for the things he does except that he is a pretty lousy and disreputable human being. Surprisingly the violence of the original story is dialed down here as most of the violence is only hinted at and occurs offscreen.

It is really the supporting cast that make the story what it is because they populate Witchita’s seedy underbelly with a smorgasbord of unsavory characters. Connie Nielsen plays Renata a strip club owner and femme fatale straight out of Double Indemnity or The Postman Always Rings Twice. Renata may be more or less nice than you expect given the situation and who is still standing. Like most of her black widow counterparts she is an opportunist. Give a poor deal with the town voting out strip clubs Renata is willing to go with the breezes as long as she is the one left holding the money. Mike Starr plays the heavy as usual, a hired thug named Roy Gelles sent by mob boss Bill Guerrard to retrieve the money and dispose of the disloyal employees Vic and Charlie. Even Randy Quaid, in a glorified cameo as Bill Guerrard, strikes just the right note as a mob boss who pulled himself up by any means necessary and is wearily willing to do whatever it takes to keep the business going.

The most surprising and refreshing character is Oliver Platt’s Pete Van Heuten. Van Heuten is a dense and unenviable character. First, he is drunk the entire movie, second, he Charlie’s old friend, third, he is married to Charlie’s ex-wife. This sets up an interesting dynamic between Charlie and Pete who are really the buddies of the film. Pete even forces Charlie to take him home, to Charlie’s former in-law’s home for Christmas Eve dinner. What ensues is a painfully funny scene of family dysfunction at its most severe. The two are perfectly paired as Cusack mopes and underwhelms through the scene while Platt hams it up in a seeming drunken euphoria.

The film takes a few surprise turns on the way to its less than heroic ending. The characters more devolve than evolve but things are put right or at least wrapped up in a sufficiently messy but satisfying fashion. The Ice Harvest is not for the faint of heart. There is significant violence, language, and nudity, but what it delivers is a satisfying anti-Christmas film about people more willing to burn down the halls than deck them. The chemistry that Cusack and Thornton showed in Pushing Tin is still here though it is eclipsed by the dynamic between Cusack and Platt who turn in performances worthy of the underrated, or overrated depending on your opinion, actors. The Ice Harvest is a dark film but also an interesting and often fun film for the holiday season.