The Ice Harvest

REVIEW
Director Harold Ramis steps away from comedy, lightness and the general good feelings associated with furry animals and friendly ghosts with his adaptation of Scott Phillips’ short, pulpishly noirish novel “The Ice Harvest.” This dark, bitterly cold and violent story of a night in Wichita will turn your stomach and sink your heart but keep you watching as you wonder: could people act any worse?

John Cusak is mob lawyer Charlie Arglist. He has ripped off his boss for a couple million and plans to leave town. Cusak plays it a little too straight; think the existentially conflicted hit man in Gross Point Blank but on a Thorazine regimen for his bipolar disorder. His partner in crime is Vic Cavanaugh, played with an amusingly mundane manner by Billy Bob Thornton. As one of the more evil characters in the film, he has a different plan for who leaves town and with how much of the heist. As they wait for the streets to thaw the evening takes bloodier and bloodier turns, ending with a frozen lake scene so bleak that the viewer will feel frostbitten.

As Arglist drinks and drives his way from strip club to strip club, he runs into the usual cast of characters. Oliver Platt plays the drunken loser lawyer Pete. He is married to Charlie’s ex. She lives in a cold, blue-toned igloo of a house and seems to be the Ice Queen herself. Renata (Connie Nielsen) is the femme fatale. Charlie decides that he will take her away from all this. Throw in some snotty kids, blue-blood grandparents and a bouncer working through his anger management issues and we have a busy albeit chilly night in the Midwest.

Don’t come to The Ice Harvest looking for the irony that Ramis’ trademark comedy might provide when set against such a brutally immoral backdrop. The book’s actual content along with Richard Russo’s unimaginative screenwriting seem to prohibit this. Just take it as it is, a violent tale of bloody double cross where we know all along who will make it out alive and who won’t. The fun is in the shock of how everyone else gets knocked off along the way.