Perfect cast and a good story

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The Ice Harvest (2005): Dir: Harold Ramis / Cast: John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Platt, Randy Quaid: Title defines the term "skating on thin ice" as two mobsters steal a large sum of cash on Christmas Eve and try to avoid the consequences. Harold Ramis has dealt with questionable humour before with such hilarious outings as Analyze This but this may be his darkest comedy yet. The script is crude especially when people start dying. The concept is appealing with a detailed screenplay but the ending showcases no remorse. Performances are top notch with John Cusack committing the theft with Billy Bob Thornton then discovering that they are in grave danger. Then Cusack begins to question his partnership with him. Thornton dealt with crude dark humour when he gave one of his best performances in the superior and funnier Bad Santa. Connie Nielsen plays a stripper whom was once involved with Cusack. Finally there is Oliver Platt who steals scenes as a drunken relative of Cusack's. Randy Quaid plays a villain whose plans have dire consequences. Many plot turns make this an interesting outing yet not necessarily funny. Its lesson is that crime doesn't stop for the holidays and not everyone is joyful, but Cusack demonstrates the cheapness of certain individuals who go for the low when harvesting a relationship with their children. Score: 8 / 10

The Ice Harvest (2005)Okay, someone tell me why this movie is worth watching. For the almost flashy sets and groovy lighting? For the couple of great actors in less than stellar performances? For the gaudy violence that is neither plasticky like Tarantino nor hyper-real like Scorsese? All this stuff is here. And if you give a hoot about who kills who, and can keep track of why, then you might think this is passable. It's meant to be a black comedy, but that requires timing and wit, both missing here. It's kind of a Christmas movie, but only incidentally.It starts slow, and then keeps going slow (as you think to yourself it'll pick up soon), then it does pick up with casual murder after casual murder. You don't really worry about who dies or that it's so brutal. Who cares? The main character played by John Cusack is typical Cusack and maybe you'll like him (the actor), but his character is a bore and you don't really care that he's about to get whacked, or almost whacked, in scene after scene. And Billy Bob? Also disappointing (and more of a surprise because he's a great actor).Yeah, I hated this movie. First it made me sleepy (literally) and then it made me bored (but not sleepy just because there was so much fabulous violence).The director here, Harold Ramis, has some dazzling successes to his credit, including "Groundhog Day" and "Caddyshack." The writers are to blame here as well, but one of the screenwriters has a long admirable history, too, going back to "Bonnie and Clyde." So what gives? Bad luck? Lack of money? Conflict of personalities? Who knows!But the sensibility is just out of touch here. I would avoid this one by a mile.

A shady lawyer (John Cusack) attempts a Christmas Eve crime, hoping to swindle the local mob out of some money. But his partner (Billy Bob Thornton), a strip club owner, might have different plans for the cash.Is this a great movie? No. But it is a darn fun movie, and one I would highly recommend to anyone. With Cusack, Thornton and Oliver Platt filling the screen with dark humor, how can you go wrong? This is a film where we learn why you do not mess with your boss, especially if your boss is someone who kills people and the police look the other way. We also learn that it is not always good to be known as a "mob lawyer" if your friends and associates are loud-mouthed drunks.

Infinitely cool, twisted, post-modern and blackly comedic noir that ends up being an ideal antidote to the saccharine-overloaded bloat of sickliness that defines most festive movies.Mob lawyer Charlie (John Cusack) and his associate Vic (Billy Bob Thornton) heist two million in cash from gang boss Guerrard (Randy Quaid) on Christmas Eve. Now all they have to do is act normal and get out of town on Christmas Day. But, as is the inevitable way of such things, it's not going to be that simple.Cue cross, double-cross, duplicity, murder, violence, slapstick and some razor sharp dialogue along with a sex-on-legs femme-fatale (glacial Connie Nielsen) and Charlie's friend, and also husband of his ex wife (alcohol challenged Oliver Platt) and you have a neo-noir classic to watch as the chestnuts roast and the wine mulls.Cusack, Thornton, Platt, Nielsen and Quaid are immensely watchable and the minor characters who come and go as the film proceeds are all impressively sketched. It's not a fast-paced action spectacular, but it has its fair share of gore and grisliness. If the usual Christmas fare of animated Santas, nuns singing on mountains and elderly misanthropists finding redemption through multiple haunting is beginning to pale, reinvigorate your festive palate with this absolute gem of a movie. It's a bit tasty.