Good Time

Watch The Trailer

Storyline (warning: spoilers)

The Film opens with one of its only relatively sedate scenes (although even it is filmed in such a

way that it feels tense). Nick sits uncomfortably in a court-ordered therapy session. Through the exchange with his doctor, we learn that Nick was violent with his grandmother and that he’s mentally handicapped enough to not fully understand how to control his anger or the social repercussions of his actions. Just as the therapist is getting somewhere, Nick’s brother Connie bursts in and takes Nick out of the room. Connie thinks he’s doing good by protecting his brother – of course, he is not. And this will be the theme of the night ahead of Connie, one in which he will constantly try to fix a situation but only make it worse.

The movie proper opens with a bank robbery. Nick and Connie want $65000 from a bank and appear to get away with it before a dye pack covers them, and their payload, in bright red dye. Nick gets nabbed by the cops, sending him to Rikers Island. Too much of the robbery money is ruined to make his bail, so Connie needs to come up with $10 000 as quickly as possible to get him out. He starts with his girlfriend, and, well, things get crazier from there in ways that I wouldn’t dare spoil.

Brothers Josh and Benny Safdie give “Good Time” a claustrophobic energy that’s hard to convey in a review. It’s accomplished through intense close-ups and a style that could be called jittery, but never calls too much attention to itself. It’s a visual language designed to enhance the mood of its leading man without distracting from it, and it works remarkably with an assist by a pulsing score from Daniel Lopatin.