A Winter of Discontent
Ice Harvest Mixes Dark Comedy and Violence

John Cusack has made some very offbeat movies in his career. Even if you don't count the wonderfully dark comedies like Better Off Dead and Gross Pointe Blank, he hasn't been exactly mainstream. So, it wasn't a surprise to me that his new film The Ice Harvest was not a typical "con" movie. Set in Wichita, Kansas, during an ice storm on Christmas Eve, this was anything but a happy holiday film.

The Ice Harvest
Charlie (John Cusack) visits his favorite strip club manager (Connie Nielsen) in the offbeat con film The Ice Harvest. (Focus Features, 2005)

Directed by: Harold Ramis
Written by: Richard Russo & Robert Benton
Starring: John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen, and Oliver Platt

Rated R (for violence, language and sexuality/nudity)
Running time: 88 min.

FilmGuru's Rating : 7 out of 10.

In The Ice Harvest, Cusack plays a mob lawyer named Charlie Arglist who has stolen over $2 million from his boss, Bill Guerrard (Randy Quaid). His partner in crime is Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton), a smarmy associate of Guerrard. The two have worked out the perfect crime, taking the money from Guerrard's bank accounts just before closing on Christmas Eve with a plan to be out of the country by the day after Christmas when the withdrawal will be noticed. All they have to do is "act normal" for the next few hours before they take off into the night. While the plan sounds good, the weather will not cooperate. A mix of sleet and rain begins to turn Wichita into a sheet of ice.

While waiting for the hours to pass, Charlie skids from one bar to another. One of his favorite spots, the Sweet Cage strip club, is owned by Renata (Connie Nielsen) -- a competitor of his boss. He fantasizes about running off with Renata, but decides that the best he can do is get her an incriminating photo of a politician who has been blocking her zoning ordinance. He grabs the photo and sets off to impress his damsel in distress, but while searching for her he finds that a certain goon named Roy (Mike Starr) is looking for him.

Added to the mix is Pete (Oliver Platt), Charlie's best friend and also the new husband of his ex-wife. When Pete -- in a drunken fervor -- confesses that he had an affair with Sarabeth a year before the divorce, Charlie takes it in stride. Trying to get Pete home in one piece is a bit of a challenge, but seeing his ex-wife and kids only adds to Charlie's determination to get out of Wichita and start over.

A movie like The Ice Harvest relies on good characters and good acting to make it work. Fortunately, it has both. Cusack has just the right amount of nervous jitters to make his character believable without being pathetic. The mistakes he makes are small, but understandable. The audience doesn't feel cheated by a loser who couldn't do his part in the perfect crime. While he had the brains to pull off this heist, it's Vic who is the guts behind the operation. Without him, Charlie would still be thinking about it instead of doing it. This doesn't excuse Charlie. He's not a great humanitarian. If anything, he's just another no-good crook working for the mob. But in Charlie there is a sense of optimism that seems to be missing from Wichita on Christmas Eve.

As a portrait of Kansas, The Ice Harvest won't be bringing in tourists any time soon. The film (actually shot in Illinois) imagines Wichita as a bleak wasteland, even on Christmas Eve. Most of the scenes are shot in bars (several of the stripper variety). The ice storm that arrives in the night does not make the landscape glitter; it only makes it seem dead. As in the 1999 film The Big Kahuna, Wichita becomes a metaphor for mediocrity and blandness. It is not somewhere to live. It is somewhere from which to escape.

A telltale graffiti tag seems to be everywhere in the film that says "As Wichita falls, so falls Wichita Falls." The nonsensical phrase epitomizes the meaninglessness in so much of the film. Things happen because they happen. Some disasters can't be anticipated. It's not a heartwarming thought at the holidays, but it does say a lot about life.