Hard Luck - Jogo Sujo

This is a weird movie. It starts of as a gangster movie with drugs, naked girls and suits that you get arrested for just by wearing them.

The movie is split up into two different movies, the first a gangster/love/action/pulp-fiction-story and the second part a horror/psycho/thriller type of story. It sounds good on paper, and the director and editor are both doing their best to keep the two stories together. To bad it's not working, the stories are to different and it really feels like if someone took two movies and created a mix-tape from them.

The action is average and Wesley Snipes is doing his thing, but not more then you could expect from a B-type actor. Some of the other cast members are doing a real good job and this only makes Snipes look more like a poster name then a real actor in this case.

The biggest problem I had with this movie is that the psycho/killer part appealed more to me then the main gangesterstory. Every time the story shifted to the Thriller part I woke up from the "almost-sleeping-state" the gangster part put me in.

To sum it all up: OK movie the fact that it's very different from Wesley Snipes' other work, and that the writing is above average makes it interesting to watch.

'Hard Luck' is one those many half baked direct to DVD movies that Wesley Snipes starred in after the third 'Blade' movie. Not definitely the best one, but one of the most interesting from the bunch. Snipes stars as an ex-hustler gone straight, but with the string of bad luck he ends up as a witness for a deal gone bad. Throw corrupt cops, striper, stolen money and couple of serial killers into the mix and you get quite interesting over the top and action packed thriller (that lacks the actual thrills). Although the film has quite usual premise that is liven up with some ohter interesting subplots, the uneven tone and occasionally rushed screenplay hinders the film grow into it's full potential. As the film was trying to be serious and hilarious at the same time, it was little hard to feel for all the characters and take some of the actions seriously even in the context of the movie. In that sense, 'Hard Luck' felt like someone's first experiment as feature film director, but by that time Mario Van Peebles had became quite experienced filmmaker with some critically acclaimed works under his belt. And they had 56 days to shoot? The most entertaining part of the film was Cybil Shepherd as demented serial killer - her performance was so wonderfully hammy that it would have been perfect fit also into Tarantino's universe.

Not the usual Wesley Snipes movie, but nothing very exciting either.

HARD LUCK with Wesley Snipes, Mario Van Peebbles and Cybill Shepherd. Not bad but I think its a little late coming. It feels like it should have been released at least six to seven years ago. It is part of the post-Pulp Fiction style of movies of the last 12 years. It has that Tarantino, DePalma, David Lynch feel to it at times that I think Van Peebles(and Snipes I would imagine)wanted to try and capture. Its a very good attempt. Because its another straight-to-video flick it won't likely make any best of list or even honorable mention but I thought it was worth checking out. One goes in thinking its another straight forward action-thriller and you realize that it is an absurdist black comedy. An African-American take on Joe Orton or Harold Pinter. Not all the writing is at that level but definitely the atmosphere is. Very different kind of role for Ms. Shepherd. I don't want to spoil anything so you'll might be curious enough to see it. She made my eyebrows rise a few times. I felt it could have been better edited with a higher grade cinematographer. It just didn't have enough polish to give it a higher rating. I sensed that Mr. Snipes might have been a little nervous working on this kind of material that didn't position him in an familiar and easy to accept context. Its his way of acknowledging that TIME catches up to all of us. No matter how willful, handsome, charismatic or gifted we may be. Up to now Wesley has played easy to read heroes or villains and this guy was more of an Everyman. Not that he hasn't done regular guys in the past like WATERDANCE, ONE NIGHT STAND and DOWN IN THE DELTA. This character was an echo from his earlier work in NEW JACK CITY and SUGAR HILL but with far more apprehension and less cockiness.

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)

Faded/fading stars, newbies just out of school, a plot which makes little sense, clichés tired and banal, dialogue which adds insult to injury, performances which range from good jokes to bad, to just tired as well. You hope everyone was stoned and having fun enough to actually laugh at the mess they're making which at least aspires on occasion to camp, however hard it falls on its face. Dreck, grade D product with grade B- production values. Only the dregs of basic cable could pass this off as a way to kill a couple of late-night hours, which might work as you also do your toenails (and/or beat weed), listen to music, and chat online.