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Ice Harvest, The
Focus Features


4.8

based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 29 votes
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FILM:

MPAA 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)

GENRE(S):	Action \| Comedy \| Crime \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Richard Russo Robert Benton Scott Phillips (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Harold Ramis
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 28, 2006 Video: February 28, 2006 Theatrical: November 23, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	88 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

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.

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.

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.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

A funny but genuinely dark story.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A droll, dark Christmas treat for adults, a delightful alternative to the usual holiday-themed fare.

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."

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.

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.

TV Guide Ken Fox

How about something a little nasty for the holidays?

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.

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.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

"Bad Santa" it's not. Bumptiously entertaining it is.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

That may be your lump of coal, but it seems a precious gift to me.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

San Francisco Chronicle Neva Chonin

What a waste.

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.

Ice Harvest, The Focus Features

Ice Harvest, The
Focus Features