Down and Out

By JAY COCKS

HARD TIMES

Directed by WALTER HILL

Screenplay by WALTER HILL, BRYAN GINDORFF and BRUCE HENSTELL

Surprise: a good Charles Bronson movie. Hard Times is unassuming, tough and spare, a tidy little parable about strength and honor. Against current Hollywood competition, which lately seems underthought and overextended, Hard Times is especially welcome.

Perhaps Bronson vehicle and quality are no longer a contradiction in terms. This summer's Breakout, a diverting prisonbreak yarn, showed the usually saturnine star cracking jokes, playing big, generally and infectiously enjoying himself. In Hard Times, Bronson's role is closer to his customary image: the callous, uncommunicative loner. When this sort of projection does not work (The Stone Killer, Death Wish), Bronson is a Goliath who could be toppled by leprechauns. This time, however, the stolid performer manages to achieve an authentic, scruffy street dignity.

Hard Times is the best script Bronson has enjoyed since he became box office. His character is called Chaney, a drifter and street fighter of mysterious origins and flexible future. He rides into New Orleans on a boxcar and soon afterward picks up a fight and a manager. Speed (played with appropriate flash by James Coburn) is a small-time gambler who spots a sure shot at the big dollar. With a hophead physician (Strother Martin) as medical consultant, Chaney and Speed scuffle around trying to pick a few more fights.

The time is the Depression, and these bouts are appropriately called pickup matches. They are not staged in rings but on barges, in factories or ware houses, anywhere working men are likely to wager a few bucks of their meager paychecks. Hard Times is a first feature by Walter Hill, who used to be solely a screenwriter (the intriguing Hickey and Boggs, Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway). Director Hill's debut is controlled and fairly confident; working at his peak, he gives a strong taste of the heel-end poverty of the times. Hill is also responsible for Charles Branson's finest performance to date. If this seems a modest compliment, Hard Times is evidence that there may be larger ones on the way.

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