Stars: John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen, Randy Quaid, Ned Bellamy, Oliver Platt, Mike Starr

Director: Harold Ramis

Summary: Charlie is a mob lawyer who's just pulled a stunt that will either make him seriously rich or dead as a doornail. Charlie and his hapless accomplice Vic have just stolen $2 million dollars from seedy gangster Bill. Together with Charlie's stripper squeeze Renata, all that separates them from a new life is one long night of calamity and dirty deeds.

Based on the novel by Scott Phillips, THE ICE HARVEST is a comic film noir set in very cold and icy Wichita, Kansas. John Cusack turns in another fine performance as Charlie Arglist, a soft-spoken lawyer who works for local mob boss Bill Guerrard (Randy Quaid). Charlie hangs out in strip clubs, pines after femme fatale Renata (Connie Nielsen), rarely sees his kids, and basically watches life happen all around him. Ready for a change, he and the much more hardened Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton) steal $2.1 million from Guerrard and plan to play it cool before leaving town, trying not to create suspicion. All they need to do is make it through Christmas Eve--but that's not going to be easy for Charlie, who spends the long night getting caught up in a series of very funny, very dangerous, and very bloody events that unfold while sweet Christmas carols echo in the background. Reminiscent of such stylish modern noirs as RED ROCK WEST and FARGO, THE ICE HARVEST features a clever script by Oscar-winner Robert Benton and Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Russo, and was directed by Harold Ramis, the former Ghostbuster who has helmed such successful films as CADDYSHACK, GROUNDHOG DAY, and ANALYZE THIS. The acting is uniformly excellent--including Mike Starr as hit man Roy Gelles, who never shows his face--but Oliver Platt runs away with the film as Pete Van Heuten, an old friend of Charlie's who stole his family and now is an obnoxious, hysterical, pathetic drunken fool with a good heart.

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Holiday movies don’t get much darker, or more darkly humourous, than The Ice Harvest, an offbeat comedy that defies expectations. The involvement of director Harold Ramis might lead some to expect a straight-up comedy like Groundhog Day or Analyze This, but despite Ramis’s fine and atypically subdued work here, it’s the writers (Robert Benton and Richard Russo) who put a stronger stamp on their adaptation of the novel by Scott Phillips. Benton and Russo previously collaborated on Nobody’s Fool and Twilight (with Benton also directing), and those films are similar in tone and spirit to this quirky, modern-day film noir, set on a freezing Christmas Eve in Wichita, Kansas, where mob lawyer Charlie Arglist (John Cusack) has a lot on his mind. He’s just stolen $2 million from his boss (Randy Quaid), he can’t trust his partner Vic (Billy Bob Thornton), he’s secretly in love with the manager (Connie Nielsen) of the strip bar he owns, and his best friend (Oliver Platt, giving yet another terrific performance) is married to his ex-wife. Before the night’s over, several murders will complicate matters even further, and throughout it all, The Ice Harvest is anchored by Cusack’s good-natured presence in a bad-natured story that dares to combine double-crosses and bloodshed with elusive yuletide cheer. It’s a strange but oddly appealing combination, not for all tastes but refreshing for that very same reason. --Jeff Shannon

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Feature commentary with director Harold Ramis, Two alternative endings, Outtakes with Billy Bob Thornton, Cracking the Story, Beneath the Harvest, Ice Cracking - Analysis of a Scene
Subtitles:	Catalan
Year:	2005
Release Date:	October 23, 2006
Runtime:	85 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	8242919
Keywords:	Harvest, Ice, Comedy, Drama
Genre:	Drama