The Ice Harvest
The Ice Harvest is a 2005 American black comedy film directed by Harold Ramis and written by Richard Russo and Robert Benton, based on the novel of the same name by Scott Phillips. It stars John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Connie Nielsen, with Randy Quaid and Oliver Platt in supporting roles. It was distributed by Focus Features, and it was released on VHS and DVD on February 28, 2006, making it the last Focus Features film released on VHS format. The Ice Harvest grossed $10.2 million worldwide. The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus says that it should have been funnier.
Plot
On Christmas Eve in Wichita, Kansas, mob lawyer Charlie Arglist and crooked businessman and pornographer Vic Cavanaugh, gather together $2 million they have stolen from their boss, mobster Bill Guerrard. While it initially appears that there will be an easy getaway for the pair, they learn that the roads out of the city are too icy to drive on. Vic takes the cash for safe-keeping and they split up and try their best to evade being captured by Guerrard and his men, who have discovered their scheme.Charlie visits Sweet Cakes, a local strip-club owned by Vic and run by Renata Crest, a woman whom Charlie has long lusted after. She quickly deciphers that he's hiding something. He hints at the existence of the money, and she suggests they run away together. Before they can do that however, she asks Charlie to steal an incriminating picture of herself and a local politician from Vic. After talking to his friend Sidney, a bouncer at Sweet Cakes, Charlie goes to another strip club owned by Vic, and takes the photo from a safe. Before he can leave, Roy Gelles, one of Guerrards enforcers, arrives looking for Charlie. Charlie hides in the men's restroom as Gelles enters. Roy reads aloud a limerick written in red marker on the wall above the urinal. After evading Gelles, Charlie goes to a local restaurant/bar and runs into his friend Pete, who is married to Charlie's ex-wife Sarabeth. Pete is very drunk, and decides to tag along with Charlie for as long as it takes to pass out. Charlie calls Vic from a pay phone, noticing the same limerick in red marker above the phone. He frantically tells Vic that Gelles is in town, but Vic dismisses this news, saying that Gelles has family in Wichita.
Charlie goes back to Renata and gives her the photo, and she tells him that Vic had called her earlier and said that Charlie had been right about mob enforcer Roy Gelles tailing them. Charlie takes Pete home after he vomits in Charlie's car, leaving him passed out on the floor of his living room. Charlie then "borrows" a Mercedes Benz that Pete had bought for Sarabeth, and goes to Vic's house. He finds Vic's wife dead from a gunshot wound to her head. Vic arrives and reveals that he's locked Roy in an industrial clothes trunk. The two stuff Roy and Vic's dead wife into the trunk of Charlie's "borrowed" Mercedes and head for a local lake. On the way, Roy continues yelling at the two of them, claiming that it was Vic who shot his wife. Vic gets annoyed and shoots a hole in the trunk, silencing Roy. Charlie and Vic get the trunk down to the lake dock, but it's shot open from the inside by Gelles, with Vic being shot in the process. After Gelles gets out of the trunk a shootout ensues, ending with Roy dead and Vic falling into the frozen lake when the dock collapses. Charlie realizes that Vic was going to kill him and take the money for himself, so he leaves Vic to die. Charlie drags Vic's wife to the collapsed dock and slides her into the lake, knocking a pleading Vic underwater. Charlie opens Vic's suit case expecting to find the stolen money, only to see Vic's clothes. He realizes that without Vic, he will probably never find the money. Charlie runs back to the dock to save Vic, but it is too late. Vic has already drowned in the freezing water, with his wife's arms draped around him.
Returning to Sweet Cakes, Charlie finds that Bill Guerrard himself has come to town, and he has tied Renata to a desk chair. Charlie finds a shotgun in the bar and turns it on Guerrard. Another shootout ensues, but the shotgun is loaded with small caliber shot, which only maims Guerrard, giving him the opportunity to stab Charlie in the foot. Renata distracts Guerrard long enough for Charlie to reload and finally kill him. Charlie and Renata go back to her house, where Charlie finds the money hidden there while Renata takes a shower. It's revealed via flashbacks that Vic and Renata were planning to run away together after Vic had killed Charlie. Charlie shoots Renata just before she can kill him with a hidden straight razor.
As Charlie is driving out of town with the stolen millions, he sees Sidney on the side of the road with his kids in a motor home. Charlie stops to offer assistance. Sidney says that he is out of gas, so Charlie lets him syphon some gasoline out of his car. As Sidney is trying to start the motor home, Charlie takes out a red Sharpie and writes the limerick "As Wichita falls, so falls Wichita Falls" on the back of the RV, revealing that it was Charlie who had been writing it all over town. Sidney gets the motor home started, accidentally knocks Charlie down, and drives away.
Charlie gets up and returns to the "borrowed" Mercedes. Pete wakes up in the back seat, and the duo drive away together for warmer weather.
Cast
- John Cusack as Charlie Arglist
- Billy Bob Thornton as Vic Cavanaugh
- Connie Nielsen as Renata Crest
- Randy Quaid as Bill Guerrard
- Oliver Platt as Pete Van Heuten
- Mike Starr as Roy Gelles
- Ned Bellamy as Sidney
- T.J. Jagodowski as Officer Tyler
- David Pasquesi as Councilman Williams
Production
Filming took place in the suburbs of Chicago.
The DVD 'extras' consist of:
- Alternate ending, number 1: has Charlie getting injured when Ned backs into him, then eventually walking away into an empty field.
- Alternate ending, number 2: also has Charlie getting injured when Ned backs into him, but as he lays there, he recalls a day in Renata’s bar with Vic, when Vic asks Renata if she ever performs nude for her customers, as Charlie is curious. Renata asks Charlie if that’s what he wants, and he replies, ‘Gosh, only if you want to.’ She admonishes them to go home, but they talk a bit, and then Charlie pitches his ‘idea’ to Vic. Charlie is then back in the present, walking away into the empty field.
- A short outtake performed by Thornton in his Sling Blade character 'Karl Childers' persona, to the amusement and laughter of the assembled cast and crew.
- A 17-minute featurette about the film, with author Phillips and screenwriters Russo and Benton.
- A 13-minute featurette about the film, with the principal cast, director, and producers, about the character's motivations and personalities, Ramis’s reasons for using Chicago suburb locations to represent Wichita Falls, the film noir aspects of the picture, and cinematographer Kivilo’s choice of colors used and captured on film.
- A 6-minute featurette about the lake/dock scene – how it was constructed and filmed and what and how special effects were used, including using paraffin to represent ice.
- Director’s commentary.
Reception
The film has a rating of 45% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 130 reviews and an average rating of 5.5 out of 10. The consensus states: "The Ice Harvest offers a couple of laughs, but considering the people involved, it should be a lot funnier."
James Berardinelli of Reelviews gave the film 2 and a half stars out of four, saying, "Despite its brevity, it seems padded, with all sorts of irrelevant scenes and dead-end subplots taking up time. Next time, Ramis should work to his strengths, and film noir isn't one of them. The Ice Harvest will have melted away long before the turkey leftovers are polished off."
Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and said: "I liked the movie for the quirky way it pursues humor through the drifts of greed, lust, booze, betrayal and spectacularly complicated ways to die. I liked it for Charlie's essential kindness, as when he pauses during a getaway to help a friend who has run out of gas. And for the scene-stealing pathos of Oliver Platt's drunk, who like many drunks in the legal profession achieves a rhetorical grandiosity during the final approach to oblivion. And I liked especially the way Roy, the man in the trunk, keeps on thinking positively, even after Vic puts bullets through both ends of the trunk because he can't remember which end of the trunk Roy's head is at. Maybe it's in the middle."