Bale is mesmerizing and Rodriguez keeps up with him as the whole unsafe contraption zooms.Read Full Review »
75
ReelViews: James Berardinelli
Harsh Times occasionally echoes "Taxi Driver," Ayer's own "Training Day," and even "First Blood" in the way it examines the psychological disintegration of a character and the seduction of amorality.Read Full Review »
75
Philadelphia Inquirer: Steven Rea
Bale brings intense energy (and a convincing American accent) to the proceedings, and the film manages to make this borderline Travis Bickle into a sympathetic character - with a sweetheart, and a sweeter life, beckoning from south of the border. Strong stuff.Read Full Review »
50
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Michael Ordona
Harsh Times goes down like the vinegar its protagonist chugs to try to beat a drug test. It's carefully crafted, exasperating and ugly, a festival of self-destructiveness, in all ways a reflection of its lead as brought to careening, erupting, implosive life by Christian Bale.Read Full Review »
50
The New York Times: Stephen Holden
Mr. Bales's spectacular technical performance of a toxic bad boy on the fast track to hell somehow lacks an inner core.Read Full Review »
40
Village Voice: Jim Ridley
Whatever political statement Ayer intended to make with his Gulf War veteran turned human time bomb is swamped by the movie's obnoxious badass envy, and Bale's gloating display of American-psycho fireworks, the kind of vein-popping show-boating that might as well be performed in a mirror.Read Full Review »
40
Washington Post: Desson Thomson
The film amounts to a harsh and perpetual assault on viewers' sensibilities -- not only because of its violence but because of its overall bleakness.Read Full Review »
38
Boston Globe: Wesley Morris
The real problem with Harsh Times is Jim himself. Bale goes at the part with his usual intensity, but the character still seems like a psycho without psychology or a soul.Read Full Review »
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