The fast-paced 'Good Time' does Scorsese-lite just right

I've never seen a Twilight film, in fact I've never seen anything with Robert Pattinson in it, and if I saw Good Time totally blind without any awareness of the baggage he was bringing into it I'd think he was just a really exciting up-and-coming actor.

Saddled with an unflattering goatee, sporting a convincing Queens accent and conveying an overall scuzzy vibe -- Pattinson is electric, even transformative in Good Time, a hyper-kinetic Scorsese-esque crime film with an authentic New York flavor.

The film, directed by (and starring one of) the Safdie brothers, two rising indie filmmakers, is not necessarily ground-breaking in terms of its content. It's about small-time hoods whose poorly perpetrated heist goes wrong, and yet it has an unpredictability and a genuine sense of humor about it that kept me enthralled.


It's aided tremendously by its propulsive soundtrack and razor sharp editing, as well as a colorful array of supporting performances from either largely unknown or untrained actors, including an unforgettable Buddy Durress as a screw-up who unintentionally gets swept up in Pattison's schemes and Taliah Webster as an unlikely romantic interest.

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Barkhad Abdi (of Captain Phillips fame) also show up in brief, but striking supporting turns. And Josh Safdie (who also co-wrote and co-directed) is compelling in what could have been an exploitative role as Pattison's developmentally disabled brother and partner in crime.

But this is very much a star vehicle for Pattison, albeit a low budget, prestige one. While the film flirts with Pulp Fiction verisimilitude, Pattison provides a satisfying look at a uniquely over-confident mess of a young man. His motivations -- besides preserving some semblance of his autonomy -- are never fully clear but every once and while, when the action slows down, his eccentricities are revealing.

He appears to be dating (and financially manipulating) a much older woman (Leigh) and he also seems to have a delusional sense of him self have a greater "purpose" which makes him better than most other hoods.

A more character-driven movie might have explored this big fish in a small pond mentality a little bit more deeply but Good Time is more motivated by sticking to genre conventions. And as far as crime movies go it's a fun, occasionally brutal one.

It certainly will be a shock to the system of Pattison's diehard fans, but it appears that much of the work he's done since his Twilight heyday is a concerted effort to create that very effect.