Hard Luck (2006)

Slow moving, a little incoherent and with next to know pay off.You must have been sniffing paraffin if you think this is good… a GCSE student scripted this after an all night Tarantino movie watching session Incoherent, badly scripted, hammy dialogued, in places poorly acted. See Wesley Snipes amble from one flung together scene to another (with little or no continuity) as he inexplicably meets a lot of deranged, unbelievable, two dimensional characters.The only value this movie has is that it features Snipes, who manages to put in an OK performance (unbelievably under the circumstances).Its tried, its old, its clichéd, it's a waste of your money and/or time and finally it features Mario-Van conducting one scene wheeling about imparting dialogue on a push-bike…why? Who the hell knows.At the end if you know or care what is going on then you must be on some higher level of consciousness is all I am saying! Avoid, unless you want to laugh at a bad movie done badly.Rubbish I will say that again…Rubbish

It was hard not to think about Pulp Fiction when watching this movie. Starring Wesley Snipes, you expect a straightforward action/crime drama. Well, they tried to throw a little twist in with some deranged torture sequences as an overlapping subplot.I wasn't really interested in Snipes' character, even though it felt like they tried to make him something different than the typical action protagonist. Basically, he is trying to leave behind a life of crime, but ends up going on the run with some money that belonged to some shady cops. Now he is on the road with a young stripper, and they are forced to learn to trust each other to survive. Eventually, while trying to lay low, they end up neighbors with the eccentric couple who have been kidnapping, torturing, and videotaping people, although it's never really said what they do it for.Actually, not knowing what the motivation was behind the kidnappings worked well, because we were shown just enough to imagine what these people are really up to, and it seemed to offer several possibilities. However, we get such a pedestrian ending, it never really matters. It just felt they were trying to spice up a routine story with some shocking twists, but it didn't work for me. Only slightly entertaining, and one I won't watch again.

Hard Luck is a truly odd film. It stars Wesley Snipes and is written and directed by Mario Van Peebles. At first glance, it's a combination of a typical Snipes action movie and the modern-day blaxploitation films that Van Peebles specialises in. Snipes portrays an ex-con desperately trying to go straight, who innocently blunders into a drug deal/police sting gone wrong, and is forced to go on the run with a Cuban stripper he's only just met (played by Jackie Quinones). Cue shoot-outs and car chases. So far, so expected.However, the movie then begins cutting away to an entirely separate 'Saw'-type storyline happening many miles away, concerning a couple of backwoods serial-killers who abduct and torture people to death, filming themselves while doing so. And in the first indication that this film is going to be out of the ordinary, one of these snuff producers is played by Cybill Shepherd - yep, Cybill Shepherd!!!Meanwhile, back in the Snipes storyline, the crime aspect is practically forgotten and it almost turns into a standard road movie, complete with a cameo from veteran character actor Luis Guzman as an extremely camp gay porn baron. Eventually the two separate plot lines converge when Snipes crosses paths with Shepherd at the movie's climax.As a result, Hard Luck is bizarre but strangely fascinating. It really is like watching two entirely different movies that have been edited together. There's even a third major plot line - with Aubrey Dollar as a teenager travelling across America with her boyfriend - that has mostly been left on the cutting room floor.The stunt casting of Shepherd works really well, and she's clearly enjoying herself in a real change-of-pace role. However, there's something slightly distasteful about the movie's treatment of female lead Quinones. Seemingly not content that she's playing a stripper (her introductory scene has her performing a pole dance, immediately followed by a naked lap dance) who wears very revealing and skimpy clothing outside work, the script keeps coming up with really lame excuses to get her character to completely disrobe several times throughout the film. In fact, so lame are the reasons for her stripping off, that the writers are clearly admitting how gratuitous it is, in a half-hearted attempt at self-referential parody. You can almost imagine them whispering in your ear as the film unfurls - "yeah, we know there's absolutely no good reason for her to get her kit off in this scene, but look, that's one shapely butt she's got." Quinones' entry on the IMDb reveals only a few minor credits, and this is her biggest role so far. It's most likely a case of a struggling unknown actress accepting an exploitative role that other, more established actresses would probably have kept clear of. Quinones is actually very good in the part, proving that she's not only extremely easy on the eye, but has got more-than-capable acting abilities as well. Hopefully we'll see more of her (no pun intended).

Wesley Snipes stars as a con-man gone legit (You know the type) who is involved in one more deal, done as a favor to a friend, however that deal goes awry and Snipes ends up with the money and then runs into backwoods serial killers led by Cybil Shepherd. I must admit I give Hard Luck points for trying, this movie is so chaotic, haphazard and so over the map that it becomes enjoyable on a surreal level. The fact that I expected a typical ' Former thief ends up with cash finds himself running from the mobsters who set him up' style movie but in the hands of Mario Van Peebles, so much is thrown at the wall and the completely different plot lines are thrown together with so much disregard toward the main plot that Hard Luck become inadvertently entertaining. Also helping factors is that this wasn't made in Romania and Snipes seems more into things. As does Shepherd who delivers a credible performance as the former model turned serial killer. Sure the main story is underwritten and Van Peebles doesn't make a fully coherent story out of the scenarios he intersects, but make of this what you will, Hard Luck is the best film from Wesley Snipes since Blade II.* * out of 4-(Fair)