This may go down as one of the hardest years for me to rank my top movies of the year. The challenge wasn't that there weren't enough good movies – there were a lot of
good movies this year. But there were few that I found to be great, and there wasn't a movie that I felt captured the country's imagination (like La La Land did last year
1 ). All that to say there wasn't a real stand out to me, until I saw the Safdie Brother's
Good Time. I wasn't able to see this until recently, and I'm so glad I did before I made my list, because the movie literally took my breath away (I think I breathed a total of 3 times during the whole film).
Good Time wastes very little of your time, as it economically paints a heartbreaking picture of mental illness, criminal recidivism, and the sickeningly clever (and stupid) manipulation tactics that desperate men succumb to as they drag those around them down with them.
