Good Time (2017) Review – Robert Pattinson's relentless descent into chaos

When Good Time hit the indie film circuit in 2017, it instantly established the Safdie brothers — Josh and Benny — as two of the most electrifying filmmakers active today. The Paris-set crime thriller, featuring a revelatory Robert Pattison, is an unflinching, anxiety-inducing odyssey through the neon-lit underbelly of New York.

Spastic and sweaty in its flamboyant charms, Good Time is a pressure-cooker fever dream — a relentless thrill-ride that will not let the audience take a breath thanks to its frenetic energy, thumping electronic score, and morally ambiguous lead character.

The Plot: A Descent Into Chaos

The movie centers on Constantine “Connie” Nikas (Robert Pattinson), a petty criminal whose affection for his mentally disabled brother, Nick (played by co-director Benny Safdie) triggers a cascade of desperate and reckless moves.

When a bank robbery goes wrong and Nick ends up behind bars, Connie takes off on a hair-raising odyssey across the city, no matter the personal cost, determined to save his brother. What occurs is a nightmarish sequence of confrontations wherein Connie is relentlessly overpowered by violent thugs, stupid companions, and an innocent passer-by.

Robert Pattinson’s Career-Defining Performance

Even though at the time of Good Time's release, Pattinson was still highly regarded as a Twilight franchise actor, the part here was a substantial turning point in his profession. As Connie, he gives a natural, transformative performance, totally leaving his heartthrob image behind to become a streetwise hustler whose charisma and resourcefulness are just a disguise for his moral bankruptcy.

Pattinson's performance is a sensational rollercoaster; he is seductive as well as sympathetic, however, he is also utterly stupid. This is the kind of role that requires an actor to be fully submerged, and he really outperforms himself here. Thus, he transforms Connie into one of the most intriguing leading characters in recent cinema.

The Safdie Brothers’ Signature Style

Good Time is an example of organized chaos. The Safdie brothers, who are famous for their gritty realism and immersive storytelling, make us a member of a film that functions solely on adrenaline. Sean Price Williams, who is in charge of cinematography, films the neon-drenched streets of Queens and Manhattan with a rough intensity and includes the spectators in Connie's outlook.

The use of extreme close-ups and handheld camerawork accentuates the film's claustrophobic tension. Thus, it becomes impossible to get away from the story.

The second film that Daniel Lopatin (better known by his stage name Oneohtrix Point Never) has scored is the 2017 heist thriller Good Time. The score he provided, as with his other works, is entirely his own; he composed and produced every aspect of the music featured in the film, creating a truly original soundscape.

His use of synths in Good Time adds a layer of tension and energy to the film. The soundtrack is a key element in the film's appeal, and Lopatin’s music plays a significant role in maintaining the film's pace and mood. The synth-heavy soundtrack contributes to the film’s kinetic energy, increasing the tension and sense of dread throughout the film.

“The Pure and the Damned,” which features the legendary Iggy Pop, is one of the film’s most unsettling and thematically rich moments, offering a spiritual counterpart to the film’s otherwise dirty and bleak aesthetic.

Themes of Desperation and Moral Ambiguity

At its core, Good Time is a film about desperation and the fine line between survival and self-destruction. Connie is not your typical villain, and Nick is no conventional antihero. What makes the film work is that Nick’s love for Connie is real, but his ways are dangerous.

It is a film that looks at how people can be driven to do the most irrational things in the name of love and loyalty when they are desperate. All of Connie’s actions in Good Time are inevitable and yet catastrophic, thus supporting the film’s main ideas of hopelessness and ethical grayness.

The Safdies also shed light on the homeless and the incarcerated, showing a society where people are caged within their misfortunes. In Good Time, every single character—Connie, Nick, or any of the other people he meets—can be seen as a prisoner of some kind, trying to get out of some prison, and doing so at the expense of others.

This is a very nihilistic, but also quite sympathetic vision that the Safdies offer, and it is quite different from what other filmmakers in the crime genre usually do.

A Cousin of Uncut Gems

In many ways, Good Time can be seen as the precursor to the Safdie brothers’ 2019 breakout film Uncut Gems, another tightly coiled thriller about an ultimately unlikable antihero descending into chaos. Although Uncut Gems goes one step further than its predecessor in terms of story density and the rate of events, Good Time is still more of a small, personal film.

The film’s grainy look and the natural, almost documentary-like approach to acting and direction made for a perfect precursor to what was to become the Safdie brothers’ trademark approach to filmmaking. This shows that they can create compelling, artistic films that also offer the thrill of a rollercoaster ride.

Good Time’s legacy

About six and a half years after its release, Good Time can be considered one of the greatest indie films of the 2010s. It also brought Robert Pattinson back from the twilight realm and into the realm of serious actors who are willing to try almost anything.

It also made the Safdie brothers into real story artisans, who can produce amazing, raw, and authentic dramas full of tension and heart that do not lose their relevance today or in the future.

Good Time is not just a film, it is a sensation — a bone-shaking, flashing, buzzing trip through the criminal underbelly of an urban wasteland that will leave your nerves raw. It’s a film that doesn’t just portray desperation, it pulls you into it. And in doing so, it becomes one of the most riveting and engaging crime dramas of our time.