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Here's a Hard Times review I wrote last year:
Hard Times, Walter Hill's directorial debut, exudes the efficiency, grit, toughness and the filmmaker's predilection for a code of honor found in his best movies. These qualities also describe protagonist Chaney (Charles Bronson), a Depression-era drifter and bare-knuckle boxer, with efficiency describing his few words and how quickly and completely he dispatches his opponents. Like many of those who bore the brunt of the Depression and survived, Chaney sticks around in each town where he ends up until its money well dries up. He thinks he's struck gold when he lets the seemingly reputable Speed (Bronson's Great Escape prison mate James Coburn, who's a joy to watch) manage him, but things get less stable when Speed succumbs to his addictions to gambling, prostitutes and acquiring debt. The movie could be described as a boxing movie, especially since the matches look so good. The one in which Chaney fights the bald, intimidating yet goofy Jim Henry (Robert Tessier) is a masterclass of editing and is arguably as exciting as the climactic match in Rocky. Regardless, the movie has more in common with westerns or samurai movies. Not to take away from Bronson, who is very good, but I can imagine Takeshi Kitano or Clint Eastwood playing his part. Chaney, like the men of honor those actors usually play, ably demonstrates how following a code promotes fair pay, attracts good people to you - he has a dalliance with kindly neighbor Lucy (Jill Ireland) - and leads to the crooked, like another boxing manager who won't pay his fair share, being punished. It also helps Cheney be a friend to people who make it hard to do so like Speed. Hard times like the Depression force people to do things they would rather not do to survive. This movie makes a compelling argument that you can retain your humanity in the process. Oh, and while it's gritty and intense, Coburn, "team doctor" Poe (Strother Martin) or simply the camera pointing at Bronson's stone-faced expression at just the right time provide good laughs.
Hard Times, Walter Hill's directorial debut, exudes the efficiency, grit, toughness and the filmmaker's predilection for a code of honor found in his best movies. These qualities also describe protagonist Chaney (Charles Bronson), a Depression-era drifter and bare-knuckle boxer, with efficiency describing his few words and how quickly and completely he dispatches his opponents. Like many of those who bore the brunt of the Depression and survived, Chaney sticks around in each town where he ends up until its money well dries up. He thinks he's struck gold when he lets the seemingly reputable Speed (Bronson's Great Escape prison mate James Coburn, who's a joy to watch) manage him, but things get less stable when Speed succumbs to his addictions to gambling, prostitutes and acquiring debt. The movie could be described as a boxing movie, especially since the matches look so good. The one in which Chaney fights the bald, intimidating yet goofy Jim Henry (Robert Tessier) is a masterclass of editing and is arguably as exciting as the climactic match in Rocky. Regardless, the movie has more in common with westerns or samurai movies. Not to take away from Bronson, who is very good, but I can imagine Takeshi Kitano or Clint Eastwood playing his part. Chaney, like the men of honor those actors usually play, ably demonstrates how following a code promotes fair pay, attracts good people to you - he has a dalliance with kindly neighbor Lucy (Jill Ireland) - and leads to the crooked, like another boxing manager who won't pay his fair share, being punished. It also helps Cheney be a friend to people who make it hard to do so like Speed. Hard times like the Depression force people to do things they would rather not do to survive. This movie makes a compelling argument that you can retain your humanity in the process. Oh, and while it's gritty and intense, Coburn, "team doctor" Poe (Strother Martin) or simply the camera pointing at Bronson's stone-faced expression at just the right time provide good laughs.