Hard Luck
Hard Luck
| 17 October 2007 (USA)
Hard Luck Trailers

Three converging story lines involving bootleggers, a serial killer and drug dealers are followed. A former drug dealer tries to go straight, but comes across a stash of stolen drugs. Meanwhile, a middle-aged suburban housewife hides a sadistic and vicious streak.

Reviews
Jeanskynebu the audience applauded
Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.
Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
Rodrigo Amaro Look what happened to me on the same week. In one day I watched "New Jack City" who happens to be directed by Mario Van Peebles and it also happens to be a great movie about the dangers of the criminality in the New York of the 1980's and 1990's. A few days later I had the chance to watch this one "Hard Luck" also directed by Peebles and with Wesley Snipes in the cast. Result: this movie has nothing good to show except that are some twisted minds wandering around in the world. Wesley Snipes plays Lucky an bad luck ex-convict who crosses countless and weird situations after some obscure negotiation involving an old friend (Noah Fleiss), some corrupt police officers and a gun dealer. While trying to get away of a shootout he kidnapped a beautiful dancer (Jacquelyn Quinones), stole the money of the negotiation and run away from the police. On the road he's gonna meet a psychotic couple (played by Cybil Shepherd and James Liao) and some other strange people in a mosaic and boring film.The action scenes are annoying, weak and there's nothing special about it and Snipes was wasted in that department but in the dramatic scenes he is better than some of the supporting actors. The story presents too many characters and situations trying to be a action flick mixed with some mosaic film such as "Magnolia" where everybody and everyone is connected although we don't know how and when. About the psychotic couple...well they are presented in the beginning of the movie and you keep trying to understand what they're doing all the time, torturing people they find on the streets and you keep thinking what's the connection between them and Snipes? Only in the end you're gonna find out! I'm truly disappointed with this film because it had some potential, it had a social denounce in the beginning (Snipes character survived the Hurricane Katrina) and the movie totally forgot that and moved to an ordinary and crappy action movie. I miss the great director of "Panther" and "New Jack City" who knew how to work with explosive themes and some good action scenes in the middle. A good cast was wasted (except Luis Guzman who was real funny in his only scene), money was wasted and my time was wasted. 3/10
frog2077 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
jfgibson73 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.
trishardent This is your usual Wesley Snipes movie. No surprises in that area. The surprise, however came from different sources:1. Mario van Peebles doing his version of Pulp Fiction. Not bad but why bother - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. 2. Cybill Sheppard - her character is just so way out in left field that watching her in this movie is like watching a train wreck - you know it'll end badly but you just can't tear your eyes away. Because she looks like she must be miscast in this role, it's all the more unnerving to see just how well she nails it. 3. The violence in this movie is overwhelming, from the brutality of a blood sport - Spike TV has done it to death, move on! - to the gratuitous speeding car chase - makes me wonder how many red Mustangs they had to go through not to mention keeping innocent civilians off the road while they filed the chase - and the final degradation of watching serial killers do their thang.I think the movie would have packed just as big a punch had they faded to black for most of the serial killer games. I mean, it's been done to death. I'm pretty sure the public can fill in any blank after seeing the tools of the serial killer's trade. In fact, I'm certain our twisted minds can do much better than any director/writer after being exposed to The Silence of the Lambs.Wesley isn't what made this movie - the ensemble cast was. He just sweetened the deal.TS