Good Time
In a Safdie movie, each step forward is two steps back. Everything serves a purpose, but by the end it’s so convoluted it becomes unclear what the motives truly are. How eroded has Connie’s mission to bail out his brother become, and how dangerous is it to those around him (especially to his brother)?
Read this as fast as you can: Need to bail out the brother so pick up the girl to get the credit card for the bail bond shop, find out brother is in the hospital so go and visit, wait for the cop to leave so you can sneak him out, sneak him onto the bus and into random people’s house to use the phone so you can get picked up, realize it’s not your brother, drive back to hospital, guy tells you about some money he had last night, go back to the haunted house, don’t find the money but find the acid, beat up security guard and steal his clothes and car, go to his house and try to sell the acid, leave the house with acid, and STOP.
60 second slow burn zoom in on Connie’s face. Cut to his brother in the same place as he was at the beginning of the movie.
One of my favorite shots in movies is the long steady shot of Dirk Diggler’s face during the Jessie’s Girl scene in Boogie Nights. I’ve always been just mesmerized by watching a someone’s thoughts so clearly portrayed on their face, I always felt like I was looking right at his brain and watching it spin. Watching the slow zoom on Connie’s face in the back of the cop car, I caught myself staring with my mouth open, in shock, like I had just turned off a white noise machine I’d had on for 8 hours. The speed feels like background noise until ———- silence. 5 stars. I’m floored.