Good Time

Connie talks his beloved brother into robbing a bank, and it would likely have succeeded but for Nick’s limited understanding: he alone ends up in the hands of the police. While Connie tries to hunt down bail money to spring Nick, he discovers there are other ways to get his brother out of jail. Thus begins Connie’s protrac­ted, nerve-racking search through a New York night reminiscent of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Independent NYC filmmaking duo Josh and Benny Safdie have constructed their hard-edged, over-the-top crime drama around the theme of brotherly love: mercurial Connie will do whatever it takes to help intellectually-disabled Nick, never once balking at the risks he takes to save him. Impressive, hair-raising scenes of violence alternate with long verbal outbursts by the two-bit denizens of the underworld, and here the fluid grace of Robert Pattinson’s blond character Connie commands center stage. For the role of the slow but volatile Nick, co-director Benny Safdie dove in with gusto.