Dr. Henry Carter, a disillusioned celebrity psychiatrist in Los Angelos who’s wife recently died, is lost in a downward metaphysical spiral — and smoking boatloads of marijuana. Waitaminute, this almost sounds like the recipe for a Seth Rogan flick, but it’s instead quite a somber film from up-and-coming director Jonas Pate with the cross-story feel reminiscent of Crash. The stories of Carter’s patients, Jack, Shamus, Patrick, Kate and Jemma, intertwine as they all cross paths at the shrink’s office. The correlation I see to Crash is the moral dilemmas they are faced with, inherent of the theme.

Steven Holden of the NY Times calls it “a contemporary Play It As It Lays”, a 1972 movie about a Hollywood actress who undergoes psychiatry at a sanitarium, searching for meaning in her life only to find that it’s up to her to make it.  While there’s overtones of the 1972 film in that it speaks about the stresses of not only the south Californian celebrity and community’s lifestyle, I find the Crash comparison much closer for the simple fact that Play It As It Lays is much more focused on one person.  More like Crash, Shrink moves between the problems of several people, but it isn’t as culture-based and is more generational such as mid-life crisis and relationship fidelity as well as teenage rebellion and disenchantment. Unfortunuately it doesn’t have a solid theme for them all which proves how Crash’s racism theme won it an academy award. The struggles that people encounter on the road to success and stardom outline Shrink’s plot and make it a sort of “awe, poor hollywood people” type thing instead of anything that the rest of the country can relate to.

While all the stories have their own intriguing plotlines, the main chronicle of Henry Carter is the most fulfilling. At this point, we all know Kevin Spacey can act, but he once again manages to really pull in the viewer to his painful world as he portrays someone battling his demons in an escapism to an rather unlikely drug addiction, marijuana.  It’s actually humorous to find those scenes of seeking counsel from his dealer, the guy who’s not his friend but whom Henry tries to treat as one, an all-too-familiar scene from any pot-smoker’s life.

There are some writer tricks that make me gag toward the end, including the mis-direction trick (without giving it away, here’s an example: “I’m sorry to inform you but your husband isn’t ok..[insert gasp from would-be widow]… in fact HE’S GREAT!”) and that particular one happens literally 3 times in a row, scene after scene right until the end where everything ends hunky-doory. I realize that it’s Hollywood, despite being an independent film, and that as producers of the film they need to think of a way to make money to justify their expense in making the movie. But I’ll never accept quickly typing up a movie’s plots with “everything always works out in the end” type of fantasies as “good art”.  A good film is something like As Good As It Gets, where there’s multiple plot lines that are intertwined but the focus never direly leaves the protagonist as it did in Shrink, and in the end, it may have been happy for Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt’s characters to go for that walk, but it was only a walk — the emphasis was not on them suddenly becoming girlfriend and boyfriend but on them getting over themselves and spending quality time together.  The result of that early morning stroll to the bakery wasn’t getting married, getting that great job promotion, overcoming a fear of heights or anything. It left a lot up to the imagination and THAT’s why it was a happy ending.

Shrink, on the other hand, seemed like it was desperate for a happy ending and it actually made me bummed out to watch. And I’m sure I’m not the only one. It’s as if I was lured into watching what I thought would be a great book only to find out it was only ok.  And as Dr. Henry Carter says on national television as he gets closer and closer to a complete breakdown in his life, I would say the line Don’t Buy This Book more or less sums up my feelings.

SPOILERS WITHIN..

From the makers of Terminator 3 comes a film portraying a somewhat believable future where the average human being interacts with the rest of the world behind the veil of robot clones.  A concept resembling that of today’s internet identities, the chilling similarity to the growing trend of spending hours on end behind the computer at work or at home, from social networking to video game addiction, people just can’t seem to pull themselves away from their computers.  In the movie, however, it takes the psychology to the next level where people are not interested anymore in being who they are but a more perfected version of themselves:   younger, in-shape, adorned with super-human strength and abilities.  Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t explore this facet of the plot to any extent. Instead, the whole thing seems like an X-Files episode starring Bruce Willis as agent Mulder.

What’s worse is there’s a fundamental flaw in the storytelling.  The two FBI agents are trying to figure out how the users of the robot surrogates are dying when their surrogates “die” and who is behind the murders.  Now, they build up the question of user-death to a point where you’re waiting for the answer and when it finally comes, it’s vague and unsatisfying. Instead, the focus remains on the why but never gives us a how. Coupled with a lack of character development on the part played by Ving Rhames, The Prophet (a terrible, terrible alias if I’ve ever heard one), the movie starts to fall apart half-way through. The Prophet is supposed to be this leader of the Humanist revolution movement who lives among the real humans who deny the existence of surrogates in special colonies throughout the world, surrogates disallowed.  When he turns out to be a surrogate himself run by the creator of the surrogate robots, it’s not surprising at all because his character never had a chance on screen. In fact, if I were Ving Rhames I’d be pissed. He could have had a whole scene where he discussed his philosophy against “surrogacy” when Bruce Willis entered the human colony to speak with him. Instead, Bruce gets his ass kicked by The Prophet’s toadies and that ends the whole opportunity.  Maybe this is the way it happened in the graphic novel? If it is, then I wouldn’t be impressed with it either.

Another poor use of the plot outlined in the beginning is that the surrogate creator, Dr. Cantor, loses his son and Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) empathizes with him that he lost his son as well. This creates a bond between them that moves the story along. In the end, however, Dr. Cantor plans to destroy not only all the surrogates in the world to teach humanity a lesson, but all the users as well.  This makes NO sense whatsoever. Why would a man who lost his son and who found solace in his bond with Greer want to kill billions of people suddenly? Maybe it’s not so sudden — Cantor kills quite a few people throughout the movie, but this makes for superficial rationalisation since Cantor’s real qualm is with VSI, the corporation which manufactors, markets and distributes surrogates.  If Cantor was a man who snapped, we didn’t see a before photo, only an after.

All of this might have been forgivable if it weren’t for all the cliches throughout the movie (the dialogue was particularly bad at parts). Obviously, the moral lesson is clear:  humans first.  Hmmm, didn’t we get that in the Matrix?  Or I, Robot? Or Terminator? Shall I go on?  Not that it’s wrong to pitch the ethical dilemma, but the hard sell is inappropriate at this point.  I would have much rather they focused on the characters than on the crime sleuthing (especially since there were a couple of seasoned actors in it who, despite the circumstances, did a pretty decent job).  The plot in a noir flick is already a given;  adding to it is where a movie becomes a work of art.

Just before Batman Begins, Christian Bale produced and starred in Harsh Times, an excerpt from the end of a life of a soldier whose experience as in the occupation of Iraq has overthrown his initial Los Angelos thug lifestyle and sends him into the throes of a bloody American persona. With Freddy Rodriguez partnered, the two friends entwine in a chaotic week of on-the-fence opportunities that spiral tragically out of control, starting with simple chill-out sessions involving beers, cigarettes and pot and ending in shootouts and bloodbaths.

Directed by David Ayer, writer of Training Day, there’s a distinct overlapping of ideas from one movie to the next.  Both are set in Los Angelos and both show a glimpse of the low-level criminal underground that plagues the neighborhoods of southern California.  This is achieved by showing the path of the characters, who are criminals, moving from house to house in search of drugs or money or people throughout the movie. The difference in Harsh Times, however, is that the characters are not cops, although Christian Bale does play a U.S. soldier whom the Homeland Security is trying to recruit (does that count?).

The highlight of this film is tied between character development and direction. The pacing allows for the characters to show their true nature and background quite thoroughly and the direction definitely forces the actors to be fully engulfed in their roles. The script could be stale if the first hour wasn’t focused on Jim and Mike’s friendship with, dare I say, touching scenes of bromance and homey-code companionship.

The real sense of awe with the film is the feeling of uneasiness while the main characters put themselves in vulnerable situations.  Anyone who’s ever taken risks in pursuit of an illegal source of happiness (i.e. anyone who’s ever gone on a ride to pick up drugs) could relate to being in the car with a complete stranger and cruising around a bad part of town.  David Ayer fully captures this in a way that Training Day really only touched upon — in Training Day, the risk was being taken with someone who was already well known, at least by the police force. (Alas, this is not a training day movie review..) In Harsh Times, the characters make very poor decisions in the name of making a quick buck and their fate inevitably turns sour. It’s actually almost hard to watch.

Not entirely comprised of original material, Harsh Times does have a quality of uniqueness that surpasses many films of its genre.  At the same time, it’s a story that could be set in any period from the last 40 years — replace an Iraq vet with a Vietnam vet in the 60s or 70s doing heroin on top of the booze and pot and you’ve got the same movie.  The original quality lies in the modernized sense of the American dream and capitalist attitude, where the peace-loving atmosphere from the Vietnam era is long gone and instead Iraq vets are coming back home to attempt to make something of their bank accounts instead of sit around all day shooting dope and this is a much more common social pressure of contemporary America than anti-war activism.

Overall, it’s an entertaining flick. Not the best of anybody’s work, but great for everyone’s resume and a no-brainer to kick back with some beers on a Tuesday night to.