Almost everything is almost ugly, the clothes, the city, the cars, the people, even our protagonist. There's a poetry, a beauty, singing underneath them all though in their desire to be better than what society gives them as derelict people in the margins; poor, women, or criminal. Bronson is part homely, part silver fox, as as some say “All man”…The movie is too for that matter. Walter Hill has never had much time for women in his movies and I don't know that that's fine, but that's him and he doesn't shy away from it, or try to pretend he has much to offer in that realm, even though at times he really does. My point is “Hard Times” looks and feels exactly like that. The streets are worn, the buildings are ratty and tattered, most things are green or brown. The people are cheats, louses, addicts, fighters, and other forms of societies supposed ne’er do wells. A line that sticks is “Some people are born to fail and some have it thrust upon them”. The way it's put forth is as a statement of fact, but if we accept it as such, (at least for this movie) we might ask who in this movie was fated as such, and who has had it thrust upon them, but even more important, is to ask who the film empathizes with of the born to fail, and thrust upon. The answer provided in the narrative is very clearly both. You might say that James Coburn's glorified pimp “Speed” is the identifiable born to fail. You might say Strother Martin’s “Poe” is the one that had it thrust upon him, or you might say it's Bronson’s “Chaney. Doesn't matter, they all have both, and they are all deemed worthy of good fortune, good will, respect, and community. It's the foundation of this movies heart, for as ugly and mean and cold as this movie can be, on the surface it has a very strong vein of warmth underneath it in the form of male comraderie and brotherhood as all Hill films do. The films final act is the ultimate reveal. These three temporary fellow travelers one of whom almost discarded Chaney once he wouldn't save him from his predilection towards gambling, who would've pimped him into the ground unintentionally given his predilection and selfishness, end their dealings with a gift from Bronson. A generous bounty considering they deserved nothing, but in this movie deserves has nothing to do with it. The men who lose to Bronson don't lose to Bronson because they're bad guys, they lose because they're not fighting with what he's fighting with; a strong sense of self. They find their worth in the fighting, in the work, in the money, Bronson knows his exist well outside of it and he's willing to fight merely as an extension of it. One man named “Jim Henry” (Robert Tessier) is so much the case of a sense of worth trapped in your work, that he seems to become smaller after he loses to Bronson. The movie (again like all Hill’s movies) is not interested in morality in an unjust and many times unlawful world. Hill is a working class director and his characters are the underclasses. They are guided by individual codes and that they stay true to them is the mark of righteousness, not objective blind obedience to authority and those who would trample them. This movie is as underground as Denis Leary in Demolition Man. It feels subterranean and it deals with subterranean people. Those unseen, uncatered to, left to fend for themselves anyway they can. They all only want to survive and Hill finds - as any great storyteller - a profound nobility in the will to survive, and it shows whether it's Nolte's “Jack Kates” keeping Murphy's “Reggie Hammond's” stolen money from him despite knowing it's stolen in 48 hrs, or the mutual respect between “The Warriors” and “The Riffs” or in this case between Chaney and his temporary partners, Hill always seems to suggest that there is honor amongst thieves, because ultimately they're just trying to survive, and that is honorable.
