The Ice Harvest
Directed by Harold Ramis
Written by Richard Russo and Robert Benton
Starring John Cusack, Oliver Platt, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen
Classification: 14A
Rating: ***
It's Wichita, it's cold and it's Christmas time too, but we're definitely not in Dorothy's Kansas any more. And nowhere near It's a Wonderful Life. Nope, from the first slack-jawed words we hear, it's safe to say that The Ice Harvest wears its black comedy right on its beer-stained sleeve. Pardon me for paraphrasing, but those opening sentiments, spoken as freezing rain pelts down on stray piles of dirty slush, go something like this: "Christmas Eve - ho fornicating ho."
From that merry start, director Harold Ramis scores with his most acidic comedy since Groundhog Day, assisted by some distinctly unfestive dialogue from a pair of veteran writers (Robert Benton teamed with Richard Russo), and further helped by a gleeful cast that takes turns, and wicked delight, in doing what actors love to do best - brazenly stealing scenes. Oh, Santa's been awfully good to them here.
Speaking of theft, the spirit that fills this unholy flick is pure larceny, and that's precisely where the plot begins. Charlie (John Cusack) and his partner in sleaze Vic (Billy Bob Thornton) have just heisted more than $2-million from one of the several strip joints that grace the Wichita line. (Wide open on this eve of "God's birthday," the clubs serve their version of midnight mass to the city's loyal parishioners.) Since Charlie is a two-bit mob lawyer, and Vic is a died-in-the-silk pornographer, each has a certain familiarity with the low life. Neither, however, is especially bright, although, by now, both have figured out that the local capo (Randy Quaid) has gotten wind of their money grab and dispatched a beefy thug to make amends.
But you can't have a noirish caper without a sultry femme. Enter Connie Nielsen as Renata, a club manager and the first of the scene-stealers. Spotting Charlie shortly after his larcenous deed, she sashays past the strippers working their poles, sidles up close to his smug little mug, and coos: "You look like the cat who swallowed the canary, like you're about to belch a feather." Later, knowing that even his alcoholism is the wishy-washy brand, she gives him the only good advice he receives all evening: "You should either sober up or get blind drunk."
Alas, he does neither, but, flask in hand, proceeds to sip his way through a torturously long and nasty night. Of course, there being no honour even among Christmas Eve thieves, matters do go amusingly awry. In fact, cruel laughs are available all the way to the end, but I won't spoil your fun by spilling the means. Instead, let's focus on the next scene-swiper: A hilarious, near-Falstaffian Oliver Platt, who pops up as Pete, an architect unhappily married to our lawyer's ex-wife (it is, after all, a very small burgh). Still, the guys have remained sort-of friends, largely because Pete is the proud possessor of something that Charlie can only envy - a state of total, irresponsible, to-hell-with-'em-all inebriation. Apparently, it's the gift that keeps on giving, especially when the in-laws are threatening you with turkey dinner. Yuletide comedy doesn't get much blacker.
Or so we might have thought, until a broad Tarantino-esque sequence bulges out of the film's middle like a Santa reindeer swallowed by a sardonic python. It involves the two nervous thieves and a locked trunk. The trunk contains a body not nearly as dead as the thieves think. They engage in a heated debate over whether the bulky thing will fit into the back seat of their borrowed Mercedes - transporting Christmas parcels can be such a trial. The trunk listens with mounting impatience, then shoots off its mouth, among other things. By the time all three have driven to a remote wharf at the foot of a frozen lake, the satire has grown icier still, and the comic harvest is complete.
Although his debts are many here (everything from Fargo to Prizzi's Honor to Bad Santa), Ramis has always had an existential side that's completely his own, and, with no need to compromise, he gives his angst its fullest venting yet. Or, to put it in Hollywood lingo, what Groundhog Day sowed, The Ice Harvest reaps. As for Cusack and Thornton, they worked together well in Pushing Tin, and, this time, they're even better peddling vitriol. Cusack is a master of passive-aggressive villainy, the kind where the face is soft but the eyes stay hard as flint; and, when it comes to ladling out the laughs with a jagged bone of menace, no one beats Thornton.
Admittedly, with the arrival of the bloody climax, your inner Bing Crosby may well be craving a bit of sweet in the sour, a hint of white in such a wet Christmas. If so, you're barking up the wrong spruce tree. This one is decorated only for your inner Scrooge, and, when night finally gives way to morning, expect nothing under the boughs except a side-splitting heap of heresy. That may be your lump of coal, but it seems a precious gift to me.