comparisons have been made between harsh times and training day, but harsh times is about friendship, loyalty and ambition colliding with addicts, dealers, cops and regular ppl living up to the chaos of LA. yellow filters marked the seedy yellow streaks flashing across the city of angel.
one of them is jim, a walking time bomb waiting for the moment to explode. the odd friends that jim kept are addicts and dealers and a childhood pal, mike. they passed the day in the streets of LA like grown up children looking to steal a candy, supposedly looking for work but actually living a life of petty gangster. the story is sorrowful, the eventuality of self destruction isnt something that jim can avoid. he is shell shocked from the war he had been recently discharged, but refused to admit to it. the machismo front that he is trying to live up to doesnt help, constantly feeling the pressure even from the smallest of things.
christian bale is powerful as jim, too much a chameleon as the deeply unstable jim, posesessively dependent on mike for company. freddy rodriguez of six feet under fame is the loyal mike, who seems to need jim's friendship more than the love of his girl friend, charmed by jim's recklessness and bad influence that he mistakes jim's macho front as being ''a man''. the ending is tragic, and mike must learn to be an adult.
the story is yellow, too close to the audience. the intimacy is uneasy. the pursuit of happiness is a never ending quest, and those not looking for it is truly doomed.
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