10/14/2006

Hard Luck (2006)


Hard Luck (2006) -* *1\2

Directed By: Mario Van Peebles

Starring: Wesley Snipes, Mario Van Peebles, Cybill Shepherd, Jackie Quinones, and Luis Guzman











Hard Luck tries to be different but fails. Lucky (Snipes) is an ex-con who (as usual) wants to go straight. After a botched stakeout, Lucky finds himself with $500,000 and an accomplice named Angela (Quinones). Now they are on the run from corrupt cops and Captain Davis (Van Peebles), who has an old score to settle with Lucky. If that's not enough plot, Cass (Shepherd) is a totally unrelated character who likes to torture people. Everything makes sense in the end.... or does it?



When the Shepherd character is introduced, the movie goes off the rails. Even though it's a different idea to throw a serial killer into an "ex-con goes straight" story, it doesn't work at all. Snipes has a lot of energy this time around, after glumming it up in Blade: Trinity (2004) and The Detonator (2006). Van Peebles' character has a great intro, but his story with Lucky isn't explained too well. One other problem is the constant pop culture references. They mention Super Size Me (2004), Catwoman (2004), and even Abu Ghraib prison. It gets tiring fast.

Overall, Hard Luck is decent, don't expect it be another Snipes action movie though.




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

this is a cult classic. perhaps my impression is based on watching a chinese pirate dvd where everything is pretty blurry and occassionly breaks into little squares. the lack of connection between the characters and plotlines is what makes perfect nonsense of the whole cops and robbers, blacks and hispanics, nice girl in the strip club mom is a psycho killer because the people in the mall are mean to her retarded son thing anyway. three thumbs up.