Jim, a war-scarred Army Ranger, wants a job in law enforcement so he can bring his Mexican girlfriend to the US and marry her. His best friend Mike is also looking for work, but only to appease his own chica who wants him to settle down. When the two men get together, however, they ignore their looming responsibilities and hit the inner city of Los Angeles—opting to get wasted and partake in the some of the city's illegal enterprises. But as the friends begin to realize it’s time to grow up, they discover it might be too late.

For my money, Christian Bale is the best actor of his generation. From movies like AMERICAN PSYCHO to THE MACHINIST, I don’t think anyone continuously commits to their craft more. HARSH TIMES offers the kind of role that Bale excels at; a character who is conflicted, complicated and incredibly compelling—someone who might not be sympathetic in the traditional sense (i.e. a huge asshole), but is still highly intriguing. I don’t want to take away from the rest of the cast—Freddy Rodriguez holds his own and the friendship between the two is another of the film’s strengths—but Bale is the reason HARSH TIMES works as well as it does. I have friends in the service and as Jim, Bale is dead on with his military mentality and mannerisms. And because of his post-traumatic stress disorder, there is a constant tension underlying any scene with Jim. The character is so dynamic and self-destructive that it feels like things could go wrong at any time. I don’t think any other actor could’ve pulled off the manic energy and brooding recklessness as convincingly.

Writer and director David Ayer grew up in South Central and the authenticity of his experiences comes across in his writing. The world he creates is grounded in realism, and is definitely not the idealized “hood” as portrayed in other movies. HARSH TIMES shares quite a bit with Ayer’s previous effort TRAINING DAY, such as plot (two guys driving around getting in trouble) and characters (the schoolgirl Letty appears in both movies), but HARSH TIMES is overall more of a character study than the pseudo-action movie that TRAINING DAY becomes. It doesn’t break any new ground in the gritty, urban drama genre, but it isn’t built upon clichés. As a character driven film, there isn’t a lot of plot aside from each person’s initial motivations and at less than two hours, it still feels a bit long due to its episodic structure. I would suggest losing 15 minutes or so for the sake of pacing, but I wouldn’t want to cut out any of Bale’s performance.

Video: 1.85:1 widescreen. Ayer’s first foray behind the camera is more than adequate. Visually, it’s gritty but not grainy and the scenes in the colorful Mexican countryside stand out in contrast to the washed out city.

Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. First, anything with Eazy E on the soundtrack gets a thumbs up from this reviewer. And secondly, I actually looked outside my apartment to see why there were so many sirens, before realizing it was just the movie. You win this round, Mr. Surround Sound.

Not too much here, but given the film pretty much went straight to DVD, we should be thankful for what we can get.

Commentary by writer/director David Ayer: I knew Ayer was from LA, but I didn’t know how much this movie was based on own experiences until listening to this track. While it was interesting in that regard, it’s not a very lively commentary and Ayer makes too many obvious “play-by-play” comments.

Deleted Scenes (12:40): There’s some nice additions here—a couple character moments and a funny scene of Mike going ballistic at an interview—but the flick is long enough as it is and these don’t add anything that’s not already there. Which is why I guess they were deleted…

Some Trailers and TV Spots round out the disc.

Christian Bale is this movie. There are other things that work in HARSH TIMES, but none compare to the lead performance. If you’re a fan of Bale or liked TRAINING DAY I would recommend checking this out. It’s not going to change your life, but if you want a tense character drama then this should fit the bill.

Extra Tidbit: Christian Bale starred in the oft-forgotten, early 90s Disney musical NEWSIES.