Good Time

The Safdie brothers Josh and Benny have a reasonable Cannes track record with their first two features The Pleasure Of Being Robbed and Daddy Longlegs included in the Directors’ Fortnight.

They’re back but this time in the Competition with a roller coaster ride in which Robert Pattinson, as a petty criminal, takes himself off on a different register as he tries to spring his “fragile” brother from police custody after a failed bank robbery.

Benny Safdie also plays Nick, who is first glimpsed being interviewed unsuccessfully by a social services psychiatrist before his brother Connie (Pattinson) breaks his way in to take him under his wing rather than leaving him consigned to the tender mercies of the medics.

The two of them then head for a bank to stage a robbery that proceeds without any apparent hitches. The perpetrators, in a neat twist, are wearing masks to make them look as if they are black. Nick, however, loses his cool and panics before being apprehended by the cops.

The Safdies manage to pack in a lot of information even before the credits unfurl and from then on it’s a helter skelter runaround through dark alleys and garish lights of New York to the climax in a theme park.

Newcomer Taliah Webster plays a teenager who is just one of the many characters drawn in to the unfolding mayhem while gaunt-featured Buddy Duress, as Ray, comes on the scene with a bottle of liquid LSD which might just raise funds to get Nick out of jail.

Add in a disastrous of case of mistaken identity, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Connie’s unlikely girlfriend and a song by Iggy Pop over the closing credits and you have more than enough ingredients to keep you on your seat edge until the final frame.

The Safdies invest their own knowledge of their home turf to give it all a frenetic and authentic sense of urgency. Pattinson is more than a match for what is yet another break-out role from the confines of the Twilight franchise.