The Ice Harvest (2005) or, It's a Difficult Life

9/17/2024

The Ice Harvest (2005) or, It's a Difficult Life

♥♥♥♥

Cut-outs of the three stars are obviously photo-shopped together on this poster for Harold Ramis' The Ice Harvest

A disillusioned lawyer and his cynical buddy steal 2 mil. $ in Wichita Falls, Kansas on a wet Christmas Eve, but after this feat they run into a series of problems.

The Ice Harvest is written by Robert Benton (Bonnie and Clyde (1967)) and Richard Russo (Twilight (1998)), adapting Scott Phillips' (The Devil Raises His Own (2024)) same-titled 2000 novel, and directed by Illinoisan master filmmaker Harold Ramis (Caddyshack (1980)), whose 10th feature it was.

It is a sardonic, dark Christmas movie with a fine, well-acting cast in a knotty plot with many funny, superbly delivered lines. John Cusack (Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015)) is good as the protagonist, and Billy Bob Thornton (Bad Santa 2 (2016)) is ideal as the ornery prick he gets to play here. Oliver Platt (Modern Family (2015-17)) plays a character that's both funny and somewhat tragic. Connie Nielsen (FBI (2018, TV-series)) is beautiful and provides depth to boot; and Mike Starr (Clowning (2022)) is very funny in a part that goes mostly unseen.

The look of The Ice Harvest is sometimes film noir inspired, and quite successfully so. This is a dark, wet, cold, strip, liquor and curse-word filled dose of yo-ho-ho. The plot leaves some things for us to ponder about: SPOILER Worst among these instances must be that Cusack's character feels impelled to murder Nielsen's, - at least without me being fully clear about why this was necessary, - and then proceeding to be fairly unaffected by the action. But over-all The Ice Harvest is too funny for these holes to ruin the experience.

Related posts:

Harold Ramis: 1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Analyze This (1999) - Analyze what, Ramis?

1993 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Top 10: Best fantasy movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Groundhog Day (1993) - Rubin, Ramis and Murray's irresistible comedy masterpiece

Ghostbusters II (1989) - Reitman's unjustifiably maligned sequel (co-writer/co-star)

Ghostbusters (1984) - Reitman and Co. conjure up the gleeful pomp and circumstance of the 1980s (co-writer/co-star)

Caddyshack (1980) - And you thought golf was boring?

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 16 mil. $

Box office: 10.1 mil. $

= Huge flop (returned 0.63 times its cost)

[The Ice Harvest premiered 3 September (Deauville Film Festival, France) and runs 89 minutes. Ramis approached his Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray to star in the film, but Murray did not return his call. Monica Bellucci had to bow out due to her pregnancy. Shooting took place from April - June 2004 in Illinois. The film opened #10 to a 3.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, its peak there, grossing 9 mil. $ (89 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 599k $ (5.9 %) and France with 254k $ (2.5 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Ramis returned with Atlanta (2007, TV movie) and theatrically with Year One (2009). Cusack returned in The Contract (2006); Thornton in School for Scoundrels (2006); and Nielsen in The Situation (2006). The Ice Harvest is rotten at 47 % with a 5.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Ice Harvest?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

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Louise Fletcher has passed away

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Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Philip Baker Hall has died

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9/17/2024

The Ice Harvest (2005) or, It's a Difficult Life

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