Crime drama films tend to follow similar narrative arcs. However, when a crime drama can succeed at distinguishing itself from the rest, it can provide the audience with a good time and offer more than just suspense and amusement. Despite its title, Josh and Benny Safdies’ Good Time (2017) is anything but that in terms of what the characters go through. While the term “good time” implies that someone got out of jail early on good behavior, the film is actually about evading being arrested. The reference to this term was intentionally done by the directors. Due to the film’s subject matter, the Safdie brothers manage to execute the feeling of suspense phenomenally, and even tackle themes such as racism and classicism, while still showcasing an unhealthy codependency between two brothers and the faults of having a superiority complex. All of these topics, accompanied by classic cinematic techniques, commingle in a cohesive way that makes the film traumatic and jarring to the viewer while adding a breath of fresh air to the crime drama genre.
Good Time is about the complex and villainous protagonist, Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson), convincing his disabled brother, Nick (Benny Safdie), to join him in dressing up as black men and robbing a bank. The plan epically fails! This results in Nick getting caught and Connie being on the run. The rest of the film has Connie facing a race against time to bail his brother out; executing wild plans and manipulating those around him to try and help his mission succeed. While Connie is charismatic, manipulative, and overall a loose cannon, it’s all in full throttle for one cause: breaking out his brother, Nick.
However, it’s Connie’s loose cannon mentality that gets him and his brother into this situation in the first place. He nobly claims that the reason he robbed the bank was to take his brother away from society and live on a farm with him. One can begin to speculate that is only half of the reason why when Connie is shown smiling like a mad man and laughing at 12:29 shortly after they robbed a bank of $65,000. The behavior exhibited by him is that of someone that was looking for an adrenaline rush. In the first scene of the film, Connie is seen as an overprotective brother when he interrupts Nick’s therapy session. When Connie sees that his brother has been crying, he says to the therapist (Peter Verby), “Shame on you!” While Connie clearly cares about his brother, he goes about showing his love the wrong way. When the two of them leave the session and enter the elevator he roughly hugs his brother and says to him, “Fuck Grandma, Nicky. It’s just you and me. I’m your friend, all right? I love you, all right?” This scene showcases how Connie refuses to let his brother get support from people other than him, making Nick rely only on him. The back and forth dialogue between the two of them insinuates their unhealthy and co-dependent relationship. It becomes even more clear that their bond works solely in Connie’s favor as the film progresses. Nick is unwilling to give his brother up to get out of jail despite how poorly his brother actually treats him. Nick is used to forward his brother’s schemes and in return, he gets a jail sentence, while Connie, the mastermind, goes free and further screws up his future.
This abusive behavior is subtly shown at the beginning of the film when a paint bomb goes off right after Connie hands Nick their bag of stolen money. Instead of getting mad at the bank teller for planting the paint bomb, Connie immediately blames Nick and shouts out, “What did you do?!” There was no way Nick had anything to do with the paint bomb going off because it was clearly planted in the bag by the bankteller and was set off just as Connie handed it to Nick, who then proceeded to open the bag. The two of them are covered in red paint and rush into a restroom in a fast food joint, despite the disapproval of the owner. Connie quickly explains that his “brother is mentally handicapped. A bucket of pink paint fell off a construction truck and hit him on the head.” Instead of coming up with a different excuse that didn’t utilize his brother’s disability, he decided to take advantage of Nick because it’s probably what he feels is easiest to do. More importantly, he knows the world already assumes less of Nick, just like he does. It’s made very clear toward the very end of the film how much of a superiority complex Connie has when having an intense conversation with a man named Ray (Buddy Duress), whom he got caught up in this mess. While the two of them are watching the news, Ray gets irritated with Connie because of Connie’s reluctance to openly talk about his situation and then has the audacity to act like he is better than Ray. Ray is a foil character to Connie explaining that, “I dont give a fuck. I know your situation can’t be worse than mine. Everybody goes through shit. I’m the last one to judge.” He’s basically implying that everyone goes through struggles and that using people is pointless, and even later emphasises that “no man is better than the next.” When Connie scoffs and continues to belittle Ray, this leads Ray to call Connie out on his narcissism and superiority complex by adding, “I’m trying to talk to you, all right? Go fuck yourself man. Think you’re better than me.” Connie then replies with a condescending smirk, “I am better than you.” This is his way of justifying all of the people he has taken advantage of. During this scene at 1:25:33 and earlier on at 50:51, Connie’s grandmother is interviewed on the news and she explains how Connie is abusive to his brother by saying, “I don’t want to call him. I don’t want to talk with him. All because he treats his brother so badly.” The news reporter even reveals that the grandmother had to take a restraining order against him earlier in the year because he stalked her and even incited an altercation with Nick that led to the grandmother breaking her arm.
However, despite how manipulative and abusive Connie is to the people around him, what makes the audience have a shred of empathy for him and even somewhat root for him is that he does truly love his brother. Connie’s resolve for him is symbolically shown when he boards a bus after finding out that Nick is in Elmhurst Hospital. Connie stares at the Elmhurst Hospital location on the map with a vignette effect, showing how determined he is to get there and break his brother out. Both brothers were abused as kids, and that is supported through the first scene in the film, through Nick’s therapy session, and later on when Connie sees a young girl’s grandmother roughly grab her and lecture her. In the second scene in particular, Connie stares at the girl’s dynamic with her grandmother knowingly, almost as if he’s reliving his own abuse. This would make sense as to why Connie is the way he is, why he’s a user, and more importantly, unable to have healthy relationships, emphasized continually, as the film progresses. It yields an unnerving feeling within the audience that they have been rooting for the wrong person. So, it truly does become a relief when he (spoiler alert) gets caught at the end of the film.
Within the first 10 minutes of the film, the topics of racism and classism become apparent, demonstrated by Connie having himself and his brother dress up as black men to rob a bank. The idea behind this move is putting the blame on black people for the crime because he knows that, unfortunately, society would more easily accept the idea of two black men robbing a bank than two white men. While Connie undoubtedly is a manipulator that uses anyone he comes into contact with --both white and black people-- as a means to get what he wants, it’s very apparent he mainly takes advantage of the kindness of black people he meets because it’s convenient to him. Even though he is more privileged in certain areas, in instances like when he's looking for a place to lay low, he decides to target the Haitian woman (Gladys Mathon). He met her while boarding a bus and later visited her home and asked her if he could use her phone. He targeted her in particular because she would understand his “shortcomings” of living in the same rough neighborhood she lives in. He treats her with respect and gives her a false sense of who he is as a person because he knows she won’t take advantage of him. Whereas, when he’s trying to convince his fling, a privileged white woman named Corey (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to pay the $10,000 remaining bail money for his brother, he is very crass and cold to her. He gets even more cold with her especially when she realizes her mother has restricted her from using her card. He doesn’t even pretend to sympathize with her because he likely feels like he is being taken advantage of or even lied to.
It’s very clear Connie is using racism and classism within society to his advantage. The viewer sees this right outside of the hospital when Connie has just broken Ray, whom he believes to be his brother, out of the hospital because of his similar resemblance, and the fact that he is heavily covered in gauze and cast-like face coverings. While waiting to get on a bus, the suspense is high as he’s trying to not get caught at the last minute, so he insists on boarding the bus first over an older Haitian woman with her sick elderly father. Connie explains to her his need to get on before her by talking about how his brother doesn’t have a jacket and it’s ridiculously cold out. The older woman kindly lets them board first and even tells Connie that she hopes his brother feels better as she leaves. Because of her kindness, Connie sees her being malleable to suit his situation, so he takes note of her address when the bus stops right outside her house and decides to walk back to it after he gets off the bus with his “brother”.
When he reaches her house, he clearly notices that they are struggling financially. Hints of this can be seen by the fact that the house phone is a shared cell phone that has to be plugged in while it’s used, the TVs light up the rooms, seeing as they don’t have working lights in all of them, and the lack of food in their fridge. The film is emphasizing that due to classism people are being overworked and aren’t paid enough, barely managing to get by. Despite all of this, Connie still goes out of his way to guilt the Haitian grandmother into letting Ray, who she believes to be Nick, spend the night in one of their rooms. Connie makes up a lie that their mother works late night shifts and he’s locked out of the house and would need to break a window to get in or wait outside in the snow for hours for her to come and let them in. As Connie is sitting on the couch, he witnesses the grandmother yell at her granddaughter, Crystal (Taliah Webster) and roughly grab her so she would pay attention to her while she was talking. This shows the strained relationship they have, since the grandmother is clearly stressed over going to work tomorrow and doesn’t have the energy to deal with the 16 year old. When the grandmother leaves to go to sleep, Connie is left alone with Crystal. Based on Connie’s conversations with her, the audience can infer that, because of her living situation, Crystal had to grow up at a young age and clearly wants to have fun and feel free. It’s briefly shown through her recreational use of maurijuana that she got from her drug-dealer boyfriend. Owing to the fact that she is a bored 16 year old, Connie is interesting to her. This unfortunately makes her a malleable pawn to Connie because she doesn’t quite realize the implications of him emotionally manipulating and inappropriately preying on her. Instances of this are shown when he tells her that she seems older than she actually is, and then later on kisses her, as a means to distract her from seeing his face on the news. He then uses her for her grandmother’s car as a means to get rid of Ray, as he discovers that isn’t his brother and the cops are actively searching for them both. Crystal is bored and so she goes with Connie and even plays it off as if she has been through a similar situation before.
However, the plan changes when they get to the hospital and see the cops are there. While Crystal is getting fast food, Ray tells Connie how a bunch of money was stashed at an Adventureland amusement park ride along with a bottle of Sprite spiked with acid. Connie instantly changes his plan to recovering the money and using it to pay the bail for his brother. The two men leave Crystal in her grandmother’s car shortly after Connie emotionally manipulates her more by saying to her, “You know what? Tonight, it’s fucked up as it is. I just think something very important is happening, and it’s deeply connected to my purpose. And I think that you are somehow connected to it as well.” The two men then break into the park and, of course, they run into trouble; the late night security guard. The two of them knock him out when they find out that he called the cops and wasn’t going to turn a blind eye toward them because he was just doing his job. Connie insists on swapping clothes with him and portraying the situation in a different manner, another example of a racial stereotype. Ray forced the acid that was in the bottle of Sprite into the guard’s mouth, making the security guard look like the person that broke in. He figured he was able to get away with this just because the security guard was black. When the cops come they don’t even bat an eye or ask Connie for credentials as a security guard. They instead, haul off the innocent man, who is actually a victim in this situation because he was too out of it due to the acid to even state his case. Even when he tried to talk, he was speaking incoherently. This allowed Connie to tailor the situation to his liking. During all of this, Crystal realizes that the amusement park lights have been turned on, and she is soon found by a cop when they reach the scene. He approaches her like a criminal, most likely because she is black, and treats her like an annoyance instead of with worry because she was near a break in. Instead of worrying about bringing the girl home, the cop is instead disgruntled that he now has to haul off a kid in the back of his cop car. When the cop shows her to Connie, he acts as if he has never met the girl in his life despite the misleading heart-to-heart he had with her not too long ago. He does insist that she didn’t break in and decides that this is the moment to dispose of her as a pawn in his terrible, constantly evolving plan.
It is a no-brainer that Good Time (2017) has such a high rating on Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (92%). While the film is anything but a good time because of how suspenseful and stressful it is, it covers a wide range of serious topics that are showcased through characters that feel very human. The way Connie interacts with the world around him as if he is superior to everyone definitely leads to his own demise. On top of that, the film’s focus on unveiling the racism and classism that occurs in the world leaves the viewer informed and aware of problems within society. While it may seem like a lot is going on in the film, it all blends together seamlessly making it easy to understand to even casual movie viewers.
Sources Cited
Good Time (2017), Directed by Josh and Benny Safdie, Performances by: Robert Pattinson,
Benny Safdie, Peter Verby, Taliah Webster, Buddy Duress, Gladys Mathon, Barkhad
Abdi, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Elara Pictures, Rhea Films (II), and A24, 2017.