It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A different Christmas Eve in Kansas. We meet a shady big shot lawyer, Charlie Arglist, which just have committed a crime together with a companion. In some hours, they are to leave after stealing two million dollars. But it's a slippery evening in Wichita, and Charlie's way if killing the hours are likely to be trouble...This film, made from a book by Scott Phillips, resembles other wintery black comedies like "Fargo", "The big white", "In Bruges", "Fuck up", "Thin ice" and "A simple plan", but falls shirt on one level, the humor. The plot is good, and the storytelling is entertaining, but it's not as funny and intriguing, or even charming as the others. The best part is in the middle of the film. Still it deserves a 7 in my hook, as I enjoy black comedies.Good acting, and good cast, and even a good director in Harold Ramis ("Analyse this", "Analyze that", "Groundhog Day", "National Lampoon's Vacation") should have made this work big time. When it didn't, it's due to a script not made with enough humor, to take it out of the mediocre.The DVD comes with two alternative endings, which both would give the film the right ending punch. They were probably left out at a pre screening. That was wrong, as always, and a reason this film falls a bit short. Ramis actually made a short movie with the alternative endings, which actually stands on it's own two legs.A couple if good quotes are even left out in one if the alternative endings: "You see; this is the whole problem with people: If you are what you do, and you never do anything, then what the fu@@ are you?".

There are some films you know are intelligently made and good for you, but you keep leaving the screen in search of nourishment or to call a friend. Once in a while, however, some unexpected, relatively unknown film just grabs you and holds you to the screen with a tightly-constructed plot and wonderful sense of character; such a film is The Ice Harvest.This is a crime thriller set in a seedy milieu at Christmas time, like glittering diamonds in the trash, and it's a heist film--but the money has already been stolen when the film begins--what follows is a struggle between a batch of not exactly admirable characters to see who gets to keep the cash--at times zany, frequently gruesome, but always fascinating, I found this to be highly entertaining--and with Cusack, Thornton, and Oliver Platt interacting, it's hard to go wrong.

Harold Ramis ("Groundhog Day") directing an dark humor film written by Richard Russo and Robert Benton ("Kramer vs. Kramer"), starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton? Really? "The Ice Harvest" sounds like an unusual gathering of talents but it perfectly works. The movie starts with Cusack's character, Charlie, an lawyer committing the perfect crime stealing millions of dollar along with his partner Vic (Thornton) during Christmas Eve. But for some reason they can't leave town to avoid people's suspicion, since everybody knows them, so they decide to stay in Wichita until things get easier for them to get out. Until such thing happen, Charlie will have to deal with an bizarre amount of problems such as follow along a drunk friend (hilariously played by Oliver Platt) who keep causing more and more trouble in all the places they go; help an old flame of his (Connie Nielsen), who's having some problems with an politician; smile to an persistent and annoying cop every time he appears on his front, suspicion of everything he does; and running away from a hit-man (Mike Starr) who's looking for him and Vic.Basically, it's a movie with Cusack trying to solve problems before putting his hands on the money and get out of Wichita. Until there, there's plenty room for funny and twisted moments, some dangerous as well and the repetitive "As Wichita falls so falls Wichita falls" quote, whatever that means. It seems at times the film is going nowhere with some humored situations here and there but when it moves to an darker film it gets really fun to watch. Best parts includes all the scenes Oliver Platt's in (specially seeing him being dragged out of the bar, or when he presents Charlie as being an Mafia lawyer, trying to threat an guy who was bothering him: "M.O.B. Mob!") and Billy Bob furious attack to the trunk where he put the hit-man trying to making him quiet (that was hysterical!). And this couldn't go on without Ned Bellamy playing Sidney the nervous bar patron, friend of Charlie, and his rants, threatening to break people's fingers when they mess with his girls. Not the perfect script but who cares? It's just fun and fun again and well made by the way. Simply one of the best Christmas films I've ever seen. 9/10

At once brutally violent but often typically underplayed, Harold Ramis' blackly comedic film noir The Ice Harvest falls short of several stalls in a post-Fargo; post-Pulp Fiction world of crime, comedy and violence fusing together. The film has a laid-back aura to it, an atmosphere that doesn't necessarily suggested laziness, but just carries that tag most John Cusak films seem to carry in their overall demeanour, as both the calm and reassuring voice and presence of the man occupies the bulk of proceedings twinned with the overall fact the people in the film are snowed in, bogged down and are unable to manoeuvre around all that much. One doubts many of those interested in the above films or content will find an awful lot of what happens in The Ice Harvest particularly new or interesting; whereas those whom arrive without the said levels of exposure to the above will more than likely be a little bored by proceedings or finding it frustrating because of its tepid approach to what was probably pitched to them as a fast-talking, smooth-sailing crime comedy starring the actors that it does. John Cusak is playing Charlie Arglist, doing so in that low-key and rather tranquil manner he plays most characters; a suave and criminally minded lawyer based in the Kansas town of Wichita, whose forlorn face greets us as he stands roadside in the middle of snowy nowhere - gazing out into the wilderness whilst narrating. The film lends an analeptic shift back to the beginnings of his tale, a story which is essentially the aftermath to a heist; a heist story without a heist, a heist that saw he and his partner-in-crime steal a large sum of money from Arglist's gangster boss. Things go well; they have a head start on the guy through slow communication processes and the plan appears rosy – the only hitch being that clean getaways out of town, for now, must be placed on hold Groundhog Day-style for all the snowy weather and wintry conditions hemming everyone in. Like all the true noir leads, his outlook on life is nihilistic at worst; but a man, in relation to the rest of the town, whose reputation and local distinction carries with it enough in the form of prominence to allow for a police officer to sheepishly apologise and meekly leave the scene after having pulled Arglist over one evening shedding any distinct 'loner' characteristics.His partnership with Billy-Bob Thornton's Vic Cavanaugh is unrealistic at best; this prim and informed lawyer working with this well-built, scuzzy pornographer doesn't ring particularly true and we have a hard time believing they'd operate together – with one the "brains" and the other the "brawn", their partnership has seemingly worked up to now. Their idea of this robbery brings with it Cusak's own verbal confirmation of its severity when outlining precisely what will happen to them if they're caught, the complications that arise out of plans going awry trying to imbue proceedings with this sustained level of threat but not necessarily doing so. One of these complications is the character played by Danish actress Connie Nielsen, whom slinks into proceedings as the archetypal Renata - someone whose first task is to breeze into view in slow motion having just departed from some strip club changing rooms to Arglist's onlooking gaze – the femme fatale with the low voice; free-flowing hair and ability to size up Cusak's male lead character within seconds of meeting him, in regards to what he's done, alludes to empowerment; ability and genre code in this regard.From intriguing beginnings comes a film about very little; a film with a likable enough lead played by an actor it's very difficult to root against stuck in a situation with a great deal at stake, and yet whose tale is ultimately really rather dull. The film is frequently very violent, but violence which arrives uneasily and in a disjointed manner not in sync with the film's bulk, making for a deeply unguided overall tone. Throughout, characters are shot in various places and one even looses a thumb; howls of pain or agony give way to 'funny' surprised expressions, and on occasion quirky one liners, before death or otherwise. The Ice Harvest aims high in the sense long passages of the film play out to not-an-awful-lot unfolding; sub-plots attempting to subvert the main course by having characters explore their ties between others finding room to wedge in with a chance-scenario aesthetic which does not work. Where the film aims are nearer the dizzier realms which made it difficult to forget certain natural instances in 1996's Fargo, instances such as the one in which two criminal cohorts ordered to kidnap someone drive for a long time with only the one of them attempting conversation to the other's stone silence – a sequence which was remarkably played and whose air of authenticity brought about degrees of involvement as what it was their presence in the film for was placed on hold. About an hour into The Ice Harvest, the money's been swiped; Cusak's character is doing very little bar the roaming around with the unwelcome presence of Oliver Platt playing drunk, and the character of Renata is waltzing around as if told to find some other work because one of Brian de Palma's recent noir pastiche concoctions is fully booked. In short, not good. The film plays like a complete jigsaw puzzle whose less than vital pieces have been forced together to concoct a kind of shape, or colour tone, which fits in with what's in its immediate vicinity; various bits and pieces ranging from star power and reputation, to unabashed genre conventions, to better films from down the years that have tried similar material looming overhead all meshing together and forming this: a film from a man whose comedic pieces in the past I have liked, but here doesn't produce something which holds together as strongly as one would have liked.