Christian Bale stars as a caricature of the battle-damaged veteran. Spending a couple of days in Los Angeles with his best friend, Mike (Freddy Rodriguez), he rapidly descends into plotless violence and gratuitous use of the words dog and homey. I guess Harsh Times is supposed to be about a man whos been remade as a warrior and then released into society without proper retraining, but its lack of narrative direction keeps the unlikable central character from being interesting. Plus, in spite of the story being a random set of events, it becomes increasingly predictable until the ending youve been praying for appears with all the subtlety and sincerity of a Ted Haggard diatribe on the evils of homosexuality.