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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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79
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Ice Harvest, The

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 32 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 29 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Comedy | Crime | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Richard Russo
Robert Benton
Scott Phillips (novel)
Directed by: Harold Ramis
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 23, 2005
DVD: February 28, 2006
Running Time: 88 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for violence, language and sexuality/nudity
Starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen, Randy Quaid, and Oliver Platt
A wickedly funny thriller about thick thieves and thin ice. (Focus Features)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Analyze That Analyze This Bedazzled Groundhog Day
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
In a season of bulging Movies Earmarked for Importance, it is almost startling to come across something as unhyped - and perfectly swell - as The Ice Harvest.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
The Ice Harvest isn't a subversive piece of work; it's not making some grand statement about the dark side of the holiday spirit. But what it IS saying in its grimly funny way is that we can't always control the timing of our disasters.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Its jazzy rhythm and economy of form place it closer to a 1950s film noir, shot through with humor so dark you need a flashlight to see it.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
A droll, dark Christmas treat for adults, a delightful alternative to the usual holiday-themed fare.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
From the cast and location to the attitude and premise, many things in The Ice Harvest are inescapably reminiscent of the Coen brothers. But as a director, Ramis is far less flashy and not nearly as pleased with himself. This is one of the most sustained movies of the year, as classic in its structure as "Double Indemnity" or "No Exit."
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Ramis is at his best when dealing with men facing a soul-defining crisis, and he finds plenty to work with in Russo and Benton's script, which offers Russo's trademark blend of colorful characters and slow-building dilemmas. The Ice Harvest finds them all operating in top form in as dark a territory as they've ever explored.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
This often macabre comedy allows us to doff such civilized traits as taste and decency. We're free to laugh at anything, and we do. Oh, the shame -- and the good time.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Thornton is in great form as the sardonic Vic, whose disposal of an apparently dead body in a trunk is a hilarious set piece.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
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 (Cusack) essential kindness, as when he pauses during a getaway to help a friend who has run out of gas.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
That may be your lump of coal, but it seems a precious gift to me.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
The Ice Harvest doesn't have much heft or resonance. But as an antidote to the sugary confections of the season, its hung-over cynicism works wonders.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
This isn't a crime comedy, exactly. It's a slightly absurd, minimalist noir, in the ZIP code of "Blood Simple" and "Fargo."
Read Full Review >Variety Lisa Nesselson
Fine thesping in the service of characters as meaty as they are immoral makes this material a treat for grown up audiences with an ear for sardonic dialogue.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
It never achieves the bleak poetry and tawdry tragedy of the best examples of the genre, but the understated humor is nicely played by Cusack and Thornton.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
It's a rhythmless, graceless piece of filmmaking. But if you have an ounce of misanthropy in your body, a picture like this can draw it to the surface the way a leech draws blood.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
This is strictly B-movie fare. It tries to do some of the same things as "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and suffers as a result of the comparison.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Openly embraces its noir roots, right down to the femme fatale (Connie Nielsen) who strikes a Lauren Bacall-ish pose in an open doorway and whose eyes are lit by a horizontal slant of light.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore
A little more "Grifters" would have gone far here. Not toward making the film palatable for the mainstream, perhaps, but at least toward selling its neo-noir story to an audience already inclined toward such seedy material.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt
The Ice Harvest is not "Bad Santa" redux. It has comic moments - primarily from Oliver Platt, in fine drunken stupor - but Ramis' tiptoe into film noir isn't really a comedy.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Ice Harvest's plot sounds like an antidote to the season's holiday sweetness. And it's being touted as this year's Bad Santa. But the only similarities are the holiday season, the criminal milieu and Thornton.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
It's a dark lark, no more and no less, a caper comedy full of enough kinky jokes to remind the audience that, indeed, you're supposed to laugh at it every now and again.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
The nasty, violent material has two small beacons of hope - Nielsen as a fair-weather stripper in the manner of old film-noir dames, and Quaid as a scurvy mobster who hates being cheated. With his puffy, reddened face, Quaid looks like a bad Santa.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
An additional change in the film's adaptation from Scott Phillips' novel substitutes the author's original ending for a redemptive conclusion that seems indicative of The Ice Harvest's unwillingness to really plumb the real depths of the darkness it has set in motion.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Michael Ferraro
For a comedy, it isn't that funny. For a thriller, it isn't that thrilling. In short, it would have been a much better movie if focused on either/or.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Black comedy? Black enough, but they muffed the other word. Robert Benton and Harold Ramis, put on dunce caps and go stand in the corner.
Read Full Review >Empire Adam Smith
A decent enough little B-movie which delivers some pleasingly weird violence and endless plot reversals. But there’s still a mild sense of pointlessness to the whole thing and the feeling that in different hands it could have been much better.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
There is very little fun in The Ice Harvest, which wouldn't pose a problem if the film had some fleshed-out ideas to go along with the booze, the booty and the recycled plot points.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Goes awry within moments and never gets on track. The scripters and director Harold Ramis have no idea whether to aim for cynical humor, film-noir romance or post-crime tension, so they miss all three targets completely.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 4.8 (out of 10) based on 29 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jason R gave it a3:
Not enough humor or heart to make up for a lot of material that's on the extreme end of noir.
Jeff M. gave it an8:
Good, dark fun.
Doug R. gave it a6:
Not bad, not good. You won't feel like you wasted $9, but you leave feeling it could have been much more.
Susan M. gave it a4:
Not funny, bad storyline, so glad I didn't go see it in the theatre!
corbin s. gave it a6:
Funny, entertaining, and an overall good laugh.
chuckler r. gave it a3:
Expecting a comedy i got gore very black comedy indeed roll over shakespeare.
jacob g. gave it an8:
This is one of the better neo-noirs in recent memory. The Ice Harvest adhered to the genre more specifically than many similar movies (Man Who Wasn't There, One False Move, Red Rock West, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang etc. . ) The only deviation keeping this from being a great noir is the optimistic ending. This would never have happened in the 40's and 50's. The film mixes a good deal of humor, all of it born of pain, with a macabre, bloody, slutty, and somewhat convuluted existensialist plot. I use convuluted positively as it was a trademark of great noir-see The Big Sleep. This film has Connie Nielsen whispering and swiveling her way toward Stanwyck and Bacall territory. And it has John Cusack as the everyman tired of his nothing life-of his own bad decision making-of his own amorality-desperately trying to steal a piece of the pie for himself. None of it works out for him-as it shouldn't. Billy Bob Thorton's character is a bit thin but has two great scenes with Cusack-a drink and conversation sequence and a hilariously devious ridding of bodies. Overall the ending and a few of the more ridiculous plot holes make this film not quite perfect noir-but today in my cineplex, pretty good noir is always welcome.
