Robert Pattinson is best known for playing a sparkly vampire in the Twilight series. He’s transformed into the gritty, fearless, and incredibly resourceful Connie Nicks in Good Time – A24’s new indie hit.

Connie’s nightmare night begins when he and his mentally challenged brother Nick (Benny Safdie) rob a bank. After the sloppily planned robbery goes wrong, it ends in Nick’s arrest. Connie spends the night trying to get $10,000 to bail Nick out of NYC notorious Rikers Island, while also evading the police himself.

Determined and running out of time, Connie’s ideas become bolder and even more desperate. His roller-coaster night bring in a cast of characters – a teenage girl and her mother, a man recently released on parole, and a heart pounding sequence in a hospital.

As great as the other actors are, the film revolves around Pattinson’s performance and he’s fantastic. Pattinson is believable as a slippery sometime-y criminal from the first moment he burst into Nick’s therapy session. Pattinson nails every one of Connie’s details.  He wears the desperation of a man trying to get out of a bad situation, and the loyalty and love of a brother on his face in every scene. This is Pattinson’s best performance of his career and may be the film that starts to separate him from his sparkly tweenage past.

As dark and dim as the subject matter is, the film has moments of levity and laughter. The best comes via a flashback to how a character got from Point A to Point B. As frantic as the story is, it manages to be fun and entertaining from beginning to end.

Good Time is an ironic title since the bulk of the film is the main character have anything but a good time. It’s a tortures tale that centers on loyalty, love, and bad decisions. Watching Connie run around NYC for $10,000 was like watching a rat in maze where cheese is moved right before the rat gets to it. Pattinson’s performance matched with the gritty NYC landscape should have it in the Oscar conversation come February.

Grade: A