Good Time: Tales of a Hubristic and Manipulative Force

“Look, losers like you are incapable of taking care of yourselves.  You’re either leeching off mommy, leeching off welfare, or living off the government in jail.”  The pure thought of someone who doesn’t fear the confrontation of prison time, but rather utilizes or “leaches” off of it as some sort of resource is a concept that may be unfamiliar to some.  These lines were taken out of the film, Good Time, a film that incorporates heavy hubristic themes throughout the course of the movie, which speaks volumes to the egoistical character trait that exists in our society.  

Good Time centers around the protagonist, Connie, who is desperately trying to patch up all the repercussions he is facing after barely getting away from robbing a bank with his mentally handicapped brother.  Connie travels throughout New York, running into complete strangers and dragging them along in his frustrating journey.  The character of Connie can be hard to describe, as he is portrayed as someone who is cunning, smart, incredibly manipulative but also very unlucky.  He can be seen as some sort of disease that drains the life out of people, or can perhaps even be compared to Lucifer himself.  

Throughout the course of the film, Connie forces himself into people’s lives and gives them no choice but to grant their help to his cause.  All of this is specifically seen in a moment when Connie attempts to break into a hospital in an effort to steal his brother, who is being held in police custody after getting beat up in jail, where he was placed after he was caught robbing a bank with Connie.  Connie is able to devise an intelligent plan, in which he locates the room number of his brother, lures the cop away from the room, and successfully place his brother in a wheel chair and casually wheel him out of the hospital.  However, once Connie is able to manipulate a family into letting them stay the night in their house, he then learns that he kidnapped the wrong person, as multiple bandages covered the victim’s face.  Connie then makes the most out of the situation by telling the man that he can’t go back to the hospital because the police are under the impression that he just escaped by himself.  Connie uses this to force the man into helping him locate his brother, as well as locate some abandoned drugs that the man had mentioned, which Connie intends to sell.  Several instances similar to this pop up throughout the movie, where characters are sucked in to Connie’s life and left with no choice but to join him in his evil escapades.  Every character who is deceived by Connie throughout the movie ends up either dead or in jail.  

Good Time speaks volumes to the moments when people are caught with their backs to the wall and have to reluctantly give in to some sort of cause or force in an effort to survive.  Or on a less intense scale, it can be compared to the moments when people simply have to complete a risky task in an effort to keep themselves afloat or to help their family.  The film is incredibly well written and portrays many societal themes throughout.