John Cusack is an immensely appealing actor, but precisely why he’s a good actor is hard to pinpoint. His intelligence shines through whatever he does, and he makes excellent choices when it comes to movie projects, but he’s always playing a version of himself. He’s not a Robert De Niro, a kind of method actor who subsumes himself in a role, disappearing into the character he’s playing, and who seems (if his appearance on Oprah is anything to go by) to have little personality off the screen.
Cusack clearly has actorly limits, but within them he can produce an almost infinite variety. Moreover, along with that intelligence he has a likeability that makes one warm to him, even when he’s playing a character one should strictly disapprove of. He plays such a character in The Ice Harvest, and he’s immensely sympathetic even when he’s being morally reprehensible.
Then again, what, in this context, is morally reprehensible? Stealing $2-million is wrong, but stealing it from a mob boss is less wrong — even if it is dangerously stupid. Charlie, Cusack’s character, is to be found musing on “the perfect crime” as the movie opens, and we know that mention of “the perfect crime” is always a sure sign that things are about to go avocado-shaped.
So it proves in The Ice Harvest, which is solidly directed by Harold Ramis and sharply written by novelist Richard Russo and sometime-director Robert Benton. Charlie and Vic (Billy Bob Thornton) have committed this crime — the former providing the brains, the latter the nerve. We’re not shown how they did it; that’s just the kick-off point. What’s important is what comes after, as their planned getaway is stymied by the snowstorm that hits Wichita, Kansas, on this Christmas Eve.
Setting the story on Christmas Eve provides a nice, dark irony to the whole thing. Such malfeasance during a season of cheer and goodwill makes it more piquant. Setting much of the narrative in the strip-bars of the city highlights the seediness that exists alongside the well-heeled gentility of some of its denizens, and hints that such gentility is no more laudable than the seediness. Given the Christmas theme, it’s a shame the distributors couldn’t hold the release of The Ice Harvest till Christmas time, when it would have provided some relief from the seasonal glut of sentimental gunk.
The Ice Harvest all takes place on that one night, focusing chiefly on Charlie and his mishaps as the hours of darkness go by. His crime notwithstanding, he’s clearly a nice guy. He rescues a drunken friend, who happens to be the man who ran off with his wife (an hilarious Oliver Platt). He tries doggedly to endear himself to the resident femme fatale, played by Connie Nielsen doing a perfect rendition of the traditional noir staple — so perfect that you wonder what lies behind her chilly Veronica Lake exterior. As events spiral out of control, Charlie gets ever more desperate and the movie gets funnier and funnier as well as darker and darker.
Thornton is an effective counterpoint to Cusack. He’s very good at doing sleazy and disreputable, and is especially good when he’s not trying to engage our sympathies. (He has to work at engaging them; for Cusack, it’s effortless.) Thornton has large, perfect teeth, but his grin is feral; his face is lively, but his eyes are dead. Cusack, by contrast, has eyes of heartbreaking pathos, and looks increasingly weary and pouchy-faced as the movie progresses. This makes sense in terms of the story — but I hope that, on his part, it’s just a little method acting.