Robert Pattinson has put his teen heartthrob roles behind him

By N.B.

KRISTEN STEWART and Robert Pattinson, the stars of the “Twilight” vampire films, seem to have decided that they have enough money and fame to last a lifetime. Instead of straining to consolidate their positions on the Hollywood A-list, they have both pivoted away from blockbusters and towards the kind of art-house projects which are acclaimed at festivals but don’t necessarily clean up at the box office. Ms Stewart has been lauded for her performances in two French dramas, “Clouds of Sils Maria” and “Personal Shopper”, directed by Olivier Assayas, while Mr Pattinson has subjected himself to all sorts of indignities in David Cronenberg’s “Cosmopolis” and James Gray’s “The Lost City of Z”. But it is his latest low-budget film, a wild and grimy New York crime odyssey called “Good Time”, which confirms how much he has to offer both as a charismatic leading man and as a committed character actor.

Mr Pattinson plays Constantine “Connie” Nikas, a very small-time crook who is devoted to his brother Nick, who has learning difficulties. When we first see Nick, who is played with heart-rending verisimilitude by the film’s co-director, Benny Safdie, he is being interviewed by a therapist. Connie bursts into the therapist’s office and drags his brother away, thus establishing their toxic relationship. Connie obviously believes that he wants what is best for Nick. But he invariably enacts this belief by doing what is worst for him.

The next time we see the Nikases, they are robbing a bank, their heads covered by life-like rubber masks. The heist, like everything else in “Good Time”, goes wrong in comically unexpected ways. Nick is arrested and sent to Rikers Island prison. Connie fears that his gentle giant of a brother won’t survive for long behind bars, so he determines to get hold of $10,000 in bail money. His first port of call is his tragically trusting older girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh). But when she comes up short, Connie spends a long, frantic night pelting around Queens, robbing and cheating anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path.

Anyone hoping that Mr Pattinson still resembles the brooding hunk he was in “Twilight” will be disappointed. Connie is bug-eyed and bristly bearded, with a slurred drawl, and a glowering expression that flickers between exhaustion and feral aggression. He keeps talking and moving in the hope that he won’t have to think about how many problems he has, and how many of them are his own fault. But because of his fraternal love, his slippery improvisational genius, and the fact that he obviously has no chance of getting off the bottom rung of the criminal ladder, the viewer can’t resist cheering him on.

If the film proves that Mr Pattinson is a talent to be reckoned with, it should do at least as much for Josh and Benny Safdie, the two brothers who wrote and directed it. Their whirling farce is packed with audacious twists and memorable supporting characters and has an authenticity that recalls films such as “Mean Streets” and “Dog Day Afternoon”. As with their earlier dramas, the brothers shot “Good Time” in some of their home city’s seedier neighbourhoods, employing several non-professional actors you wouldn’t like to bump into in a dark alleyway. But the film has its own strong identity, because its grubbiness is contrasted with surreal psychedelic touches. During Connie’s nocturnal misadventures, he is often painted with intense blue and red neon light, and accompanied by a buzzing electronic prog-rock score by Oneohtrix Point Never. The disorientating result is that he seems simultaneously to be in a 1970s heist movie and a dystopian 1980s science-fiction epic.

Though unique, “Good Time” bears comparison with Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive”, the film which confirmed that Ryan Gosling, like Mr Pattinson, was more than just a teenage dream. Given how exhilarating and splashily stylish it is, it seems likely that studio executives will be queueing up to offer its directors an instalment of “Star Wars”, “The Avengers” or some other mega-budget franchise. With any luck, they’ll follow Mr Pattinson’s example and stick to their independent roots.