Dir: David Ayer. US.2005. 119mins.

David Ayer's HarshTimes is a corrosive, frequently riveting social portrait on friendship,damaged masculinity and the dread of violence. The debut feature from thetalented screenwriter of Training Day, the movie is flawed and sometimesoverreaches though it is given a propulsive kick from Christian Bale's searingMethod performance.

A genre movie infused withan unusual depth of feeling and candour about rage and alienation in contemporaryUS, this coveted title is bound to create attention and excitement in a worldmarket. The movie's assurance and kinetic style augurs a highly promisingcareer for its young director. Furthermore Freddy Rodriguez produces an equallycommanding performance as Bale's best friend both appalled and transfixed byhis actions.

Ayer's model is clearly TaxiDriver. Like that film's Travis Bickle, Jim Davis (Bale) is a former eliteUS Army Ranger emotionally incapable of adjusting to civilian life. Seekingstability and order by recasting himself as a police officer, Davis reverts tohis worst instincts of dark thrills and easy pleasure.

From the movie's openingmoments, Ayers constructs the work as a fever dream. Shifting the actionbetween rural Mexico where Marta (Trull), Davis' girlfriend, lives with herfamily to a bleakly stylised South Central Los Angeles, Ayer creates apalpable, disturbing milieu of dangerously ill-placed bravado andself-destruction.

Pressed by his successful,driven girlfriend (Longoria), Mike is equally lost, trapped by hiscircumstances and too weak to challenge his friend's almost psychotic hold overhim.

Passed over by the LosAngeles police department, Davis responds with a drug- and alcohol- fuelledrage that leads to an explosive encounter with a local Mexican gang that endswith the two friends gaining possession of a highly valuable 9mm gun.

Davis's career appears tofinally take shape when his specialised training, fluent Spanish and chillingeffectiveness at carrying out orders gain the attention of the Department ofHomeland Security. But constantly caught between extremes of responsibility andamorality, he remains too prickly and emotionally aggressive to fit in. "I'm asoldier of the apocalypse," he says.

The movie's chilling finalsection returns to Mexico for what is supposed to be a celebration of newpossibilities and apparent freedom that instead turns into a prelude ofdisaster.

Like Training Day,the accelerated, forward momentum of the plot depends on some strikingcoincidences of plot and incident. If the movie's not always logical orbelievable, it remains intensely felt and imaginatively directed and acted.

Ayer is fantastic at conveyingthe tribal, highly ritualised instincts and the emotional, physical interactionsthat pass between them. Unfortunately, he is less successful creating a complicated,deeper portrait of women: Longoria is a skilled performer but her part isunderwritten.

Bale dominates the movie,emotionally and physically, and he demonstrates again that he is arguably themost interesting young actor in English-language movies. He uses his body tobrilliantly suggestive and hypnotic effect, yielding a portrait of anapparently insatiable, unconquerable man who leaves everyone is his wake bothdefeated and devastated.

Production company
Harsh Times LLC

US distribution
Bauer Martinez

International sales
Summit Entertainment

Executive producer
Christian Bale

Producers
Andrea Sperling
David Ayer

Cinematography
Steve Mason

Production design
Deborah Herbert

Editor
Conrad Buff

Music
Graeme Revell

Main cast
Christian Bale
Freddy Rodriguez
Eva Longoria