UNCUT GEMS (US - 2019) Directed by Josh & Benny Safdie. Written by Ronald Bronstein and Josh & Benny Safdie. Cast: Adam Sandler, Lakeith Stanfield, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel, Eric Bogosian, Judd Hirsch, The Weeknd, Mike Francesa, Pom Klementieff, Paloma Elsesser, Keith William Richards, Tommy Kominik, Jonathan Aranbayev, Jacob Igielski, Noa Fisher, Wayne Diamond, Ca$h Out, Kerwin Frost, Benjy Kleiner, John Amos, Louis Anthony Arias, voices of Tilda Swinton, Natasha Lyonne. (R, 135 mins) "This is me. This is how I win." You know UNCUT GEMS is going to be an audacious piece of work when the opening scene begins in an Ethiopian mine with a zoom-in journey inside an uncut opal and eventually emerges from the rectum of the protagonist, who's in the middle of a colonoscopy. That's fast-talking, hard-hustling NYC jeweler Howard Ratner, vividly brought to life by the unlikely Adam Sandler, who was exactly who the Safdie Brothers had in mind when they started writing the script over a decade ago. The filmmaking siblings--elder Josh and younger Benny--only had the little-seen 2009 indie THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED to their credit when they first approached Sandler, but after a few more small films generally seen by no one other than critics and festival audiences, they found some significant acclaim with their 2017 cult breakout GOOD TIME, a gritty '70s-style throwback with a riveting performance by Robert Pattinson. UNCUT GEMS feels like a logical extension of GOOD TIME, like the two films could theoretically exist in the same Safdie Cinematic Universe in the parts of NYC that have remained largely unchanged over the last 30-odd years (you can see the influence of Martin Scorsese, who's also one of the producers). It was probably best that everyone involved waited to make UNCUT GEMS, so the Safdies could get some directing efforts under their belt, hone their skills, and carve their niche, and for 53-year-old Sandler (after turning the Safdies down several times before finally caving when their second choice, Jonah Hill, backed out), who's sporadically tackled dramatic work before with varying degrees of success, to be at the place he needed to be in order to dive into the role of a lifetime.
Say what you will about his dubious history of mostly terrible comedies, but Sandler is a fucking revelation here (and a shout-out to A24 for pulling their most A24 move ever by releasing this wide at Christmas). His Howard Ratner joins the shortlist of cinema's top degenerate gamblers, be they cocky, schmucky, self-destructive, or self-aggrandizing, and always thoroughly doomed, right alongside the likes of James Caan in THE GAMBLER, Harvey Keitel in BAD LIEUTENANT, Edward Norton in ROUNDERS, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in OWNING MAHOWNY. Decked out in flashy clothes, designer eyeglasses, and assorted bling, Howard owns a jewelry store in the NYC diamond district. He's doing well on the surface, but he's drowning in gambling debts all over town, and his ruthless loan shark brother-in-law Arno (Eric Bogosian) isn't about to cut him any slack just because he's family. Howard's marriage to Arno's sister Dinah (Idina Menzel, or, if you're John Travolta, "Adele Dazeem") is falling apart, due in large part to Howard being a sugar daddy to his much-younger girlfriend and employee Julia (Julia Fox). But things are looking up, as Howard's off-the-books associate Demany (Lakeith Stanfield) has made the acquaintance of Boston Celtics star Kevin Garnett (as himself). KG comes into the store to look at some watches, and Howard being Howard, can't resist showing off a rock filled with uncut opals that he had illegally shipped from Ethiopia with the intent of clearing $1 million at a prestigious auction house. In the midst of the 2012 playoffs against against the Philadelphia 76ers, KG is offended that Howard won't sell it to him, but pleads with him to let him hang on to the rock for luck during the semifinals, offering his 2008 NBA Championship ring as collateral. Owing Arno $100,000, Howard immediately pawns KG's ring for $20,000, with the intent of using it to place a bet on that night's game and using the earnings to pay off Arno and get KG's ring back with the basketball star being none the wiser.
That's only the beginning of Howard's Murphy's Law-esque miasma of misery and shit luck. It should come as no surprise that anything that could possibly go wrong will, which is what makes a great degenerate gambler movie. But Sandler and the Safdies have a genuine masterpiece on their hands with UNCUT GEMS, a kinetic, captivating, heart-pounding exercise in sustained intensity that many have accurately likened to a 135-minute anxiety attack. The rapid-fire dialogue, the perpetual propulsive throb of the Tangerine Dream-ish synth score by Daniel Lopatin (who also scored GOOD TIME under his alias Oneohtrix Point Never), the grimy old-school NYC mood and energy, and the live-wire performance of a never-better Sandler come together to fashion a film that's like nothing else you've seen in 2019. Whatever Sandler is doing--whether it's bullshitting his way out of a situation, getting into a club brawl with an up-and-coming The Weeknd (remember, this is set in 2012) when he catches Julia doing coke with him in the bathroom, trying to talk his wealthy father-in-law (Judd Hirsch) into jacking up an already large bid at the auction, freaking out when he needs the rock with the opals and both KG and Demany are ignoring his calls--you can't take your eyes off him. You cringe pondering the endless variety of new and innovative ways that Howard--a far-too-confident schmuck with big ideas and an even bigger mouth--can't stop making things exponentially worse for Howard. Shot by the veteran cinematographer Darius Khondji (SE7EN, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS) and expertly edited by Benny Safdie and co-writer Ronald Bronstein, UNCUT GEMS is a nerve-shredding descent into a hell of Howard's own making that becomes an almost communal experience with a theater audience--you're holding your breath, gasping in shock, and shaking your head in disbelief at the increasingly absurd dilemmas of the hapless Howard Ratner, so much so that the occasional bits of deliberate humor (there's a great joke involving GOOD TIMES star John Amos) serve as very brief moments of relief. Boiling with relentless tension from start to finish, you don't just watch UNCUT GEMS...you survive it. And it's the best American film of 2019.
GOOD TIME (US/Luxembourg - 2017) Directed by Josh and Benny Safdie. Written by Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein. Cast: Robert Pattinson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Benny Safdie, Barkhad Abdi, Buddy Duress, Taliah Webster, Peter Verby, Necro, Rose Gregorio, Gladys Mathon, Saida Mansoor, Eric Paykert, Robert Clohessy, George Lee Miles. (R, 101 mins) In the tradition of SPRING BREAKERS, THE ROVER, THE WITCH, IT COMES AT NIGHT, and A GHOST STORY, GOOD TIME is another love-it-or-hate-it A24 pickup that gets great reviews from critics but a toxic reception in wide release and almost immediately becomes a revered cult movie. A Palme d'Or contender at Cannes and the most high-profile film to date from sibling indie auteurs Josh and Benny Safdie, who earned significant acclaim for their 2014 heroin addiction drama HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT (Josh, the elder of the pair, got some indie buzz for his 2008 solo effort THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED), GOOD TIME is like nothing else you've seen in multiplexes this year. It's brash, ballsy, and out of its own time, and with its grainy look and a supporting cast of mostly amateur actors from Queens and Flushing, it resembles a 2017 interpretation of one of those really gritty NYC films of Abel Ferrara or Paul Morrissey, while owing a debt to the "No Wave" movement of no-budget DIY movies in the early 1980s that helped establish underground filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch, Eric Mitchell, Beth B, Susan Seidelman, Slava Tsukerman, and Amos Poe. The garish Argento colorgasms in Sean Price Williams' cinematography and propulsive, non-stop Tangerine Dream-ish score by Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin) give it an enervating, exhilarating aura that's hypnotic and surreal, like a nightmare from which its hapless shit show of a "hero," Constantine "Connie" Nikas can't wake. As played by Robert Pattinson, whose post-TWILIGHT career choices are proof positive that he's a serious actor who's made more money than he'll ever need and is drawn to challenging projects with very little mainstream appeal, Connie is a petty criminal and a total loser who doesn't realize he's a loser. He's got big ideas and seems to pull them off but they always lead to bigger problems and end up sucking more unfortunate bystanders into his toxic orbit. Nobody has a good time in GOOD TIME, which is one of these familiar "survive the night" scenarios, but pulled off with such imaginative panache that it ends up being one of the most stylish fusions of sight and sound this side of BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW.
After crashing a therapy session for his mentally-challenged, deaf younger brother Nick (co-director Benny Safdie), Connie talks his brother into accompanying him on a Flushing bank robbery that almost works. They wear very lifelike masks that don't attract attention from the other customers and the teller follows directions and doesn't hit the panic button. Of course it's too good to be true, since the dye packs explode in their getaway car. While fleeing the cops, Connie gets away but Nick is apprehended and taken to Rikers. Connie takes the stained money to a bail bondsman, who says he still needs another $10,000 to get Nick out. The rest of the film chronicles Connie's attempts to bail Nick out, running into one problem after another, starting with his older sometime-girlfriend Corey (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a hot mess in her 40s who seems to have stopped maturing at 17 and is so stupidly infatuated with Connie that she lets him badger her ("What the fuck's the problem? It's like a loan...you'll get it right back!") into unsuccessfully trying to use her mom's credit card for Nick's bail. That doesn't work, and Connie then finds out that Nick can't be bailed out anyway since he's been involved in a fight in jail and has been taken to a hospital in the city, prompting one of the least-plausible escape sequences you'll ever see, and eventually leading to the introduction of three other key characters: just-paroled Queens pusher Ray (Buddy Duress, star of HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT), 16-year-old delinquent Crystal (newcomer Taliah Webster), and security guard Dash (CAPTAIN PHILLIPS Oscar-nominee Barkhad Abdi), who runs afoul of Connie and Ray when they try to recover a drug stash at a dilapidated amusement park.
GOOD TIME always keeps you on edge, with the constant use of close-ups with handheld cameras, and the grainy, 16mm-looking imagery giving it a genuinely frazzled, scuzzy vibe. An absolutely magnetic, frenetic Pattinson has never been better, seemingly going full Method by the end, where it looks like he's been awake for a week even though the film takes place over a 24-hour period (there's a couple of time flubs that undermine the flow of the story, like one character mentioning it's "almost 9:00 pm," then a bit later, someone else saying it's 7:30 pm). GOOD TIME basks in the seedy underbelly of dangerous areas of working class Queens that you really don't see much of in movies anymore, giving it a distinctly 1970s mood but coming off like Nicolas Winding Refn, Gaspar Noe, and Larry Clark teaming up to make a Michael Mann movie. The Safdies take advantage of actual locations--some shots seem to have been captured on the fly, guerrilla-style--in places that don't appear to have changed much over the last few decades. It's only fitting that this film comes off like a welcome relic from another era, a late-summer shot of adrenaline that unfortunately will be loathed by the few mainstream moviegoers who don't ignore it in the first place. It's a powerfully off-kilter moviegoing experience where nothing plays out as you expect, from the opening credits taking place over 20 minutes into the movie to the way Ray ends up entering the story and briefly hijacking it (Duress gets a long speech and flashback sequence out of nowhere that's the most inspired non-sequitur aside for a character since Victor's trip through Europe in Roger Avary's THE RULES OF ATTRACTION). There isn't much here on a narrative or subtextual level--there's probably some parallels to be drawn from Connie, Nick, and Crystal all having absentee parents and being raised by their grandmothers--and it comes up a bit short on that front, but as a character study in lowlifes and for its colorful visuals and shot compositions and aural razzle-dazzle (goddamn, that score is incredible), GOOD TIME is a gem that sticks with you and is one of the audacious films of the summer.
