Directed by Mario Van Peebles. Starring Wesley Snipes, Cybil Shepherd, Jackie Quinones, Luis Guzman, James Hiroyuki Liao, Mario Van Peebles. Synopsis: A reformed gangster from back East is trying to turn his life around when his luck turns for the worst, losing his wife and everything else in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. He goes back home and is unwillingly drawn back into the gangster lifestyle, but with an opportunity to make one big score if he can dodge the cops and robbers chasing him, not to mention his chance encounter with a couple of serial killers. Will his luck change?
Hard Luck is certainly an interesting type of vehicle for director Van Peebles, as it is, in a lot of ways, a different type of role for Snipes, too. Now, the first thing that jumps out at you, or at least jumped out at me, was the lead actor/actress in the film. I don't know about you, but about the last thing I ever expected to see was a Snipes/Shepherd pairing in a flick. I said to myself, "Hum, this should be interesting." And, it was, though the main question of whether or not this is a good flick is harder for me to say, even after viewing the movie a couple of times.
One thing that I can say that I know anyone, and I mean anyone who is familiar with Cybil Shepherd and watches this movie will agree with is that you have never, ever seen her in a role like this before, nor would you have thought of her for this type of role.
The plot of the film has several layers, really telling two seemingly unrelated stories that don't so much as relate at the end of the film as...well, run into each other.
Lucky (Snipes) is an ex-con who made a pretty successful run of getting his life on the straight and narrow down south in New Orleans...that is, until Katrina took away everything, including his wife. Next thing we know, Lucky his back home in the big city, determined to stay clean but improbably finds himself in the middle of a ganster on gangster heist, with the opportunity to walk away with a lot of cash. The only problem is that he has two sets of gangsters who want him, one of which is woking in tandem with a group of dirty cops. And, of course, the clean cops are chasing him to boot.
As if that weren't enough, his luck is so bad now that even by getting out of the nightclub where the heist went down and the money fell into his lap, he is saddled with a fiesty exotic dancer named Angela (Jackie Quinones) who is determined to get a share of the money, whether Lucky likes it or not...thrown together in some very close, trying, and funny circumstances, they begin to develop a bond that neither was looking for.
Our other side of the story plays out parallel to the tale of Lucky, with a couple who are offbeat serial killers. Cass (Shepherd) and her younger boyfriend, Chang (James Hiroyuki Liao) are different, to say the least, with their abduction of strangers and videotaped torture routines, often played out as Cass is busy making dinner for her adult and mentally challenged son (Mike Messier...no relation to the great hockey player as far as I can determine) Frankly, several of the scenes between them are clearly intended to play humor against the dramatic scenes, which never get gory but you know what the implication is. For example, Cass and Chang bicker between them in the classic way that the genders do when they are involved with one another, one raising some dissatisfaction and the other bringing up past transgressions and soon the spat is off to a silly back and forth. The triggering event? The sudden death of an abducted woman who has the temerity to die of a heart attack in the chair she is strapped to in their "dungeon" before Cass and Chang have a chance to have their fun. Not, its not funny, but...
Van Peebles, himself having a major role in the flick as the clean cop, obviously wanted to make a picture that had different dimensions and multi layered characters. He succeeds at times and, frankly, not at others. Basically, as he said in the special features portion of the DVD, he thought of this as a tale of two couples, and, in retrospect, you can see elements of that, though one half of each couple was relatively one dimensional, if entertaining in the film. (Liao as Shepherd's other, Quinones as Snipes') The movie is uneven at times, which you realize that Van Peebles wanted to do, but it does run the risk of losing your interest, especially in the first 20 minutes or so when you really don't have much of an idea what the hell is going on or where the story is going.
The performances of the main actors are good overall. Although this movie has elements of the gangster/action genre, its really not and do not let Snipes presence lull you into thinking that it is, if that is what you are looking for. No jumping off high rise buildings, hanging out of planes, or fighting wise cracking vampires for Wesley here. I haven't seen Wesley this muted since One Night Stand, and his performance here is not up to that level, although that may have been his best pure acting to date.
Quinones is wonderful in her role, heating up the screen and eliciting more than one laugh and several giggles as she plays off of Snipes' relative straight man. A very eye opening performance from an actress I didn't know anything about before this flick. Now, I'm not saying that Oscars will be piling up on her doorstep like newspapers, lets not get carried away. I am saying that, if there i a flick that I'm thinking of watching in the future that I could go either way on, her presence in it would probably cause me to give it a shot for that reason alone.
Shepherd is very good in her role, surprisingly, as it is so out of character for her and is easily the most psychotic in the movie. I don't know how Shepherd fans will react to her in this one. Though I have liked most of the roles I've seen her in, I can't say that I'm a huge fan, but I just loved her in this one, psychotic and evil with a tinge of that offbeat humor. My favorite Cybil scene in this one: her looking down on a tied up Wesley Snipes, complete with her apron and serial killer pervert mask and saying "Abu Graib doesn't have anything on us". I don't know, I just loved that.
Also of special note is Luis Guzman's brief turn as the gay porno director friend of Lucky's who helps out Lucky and Angela when they are on the run...but not before trying to recruit Angela into the "business" for a quick scene. Believe me, its a hilarious scene.
Van Peebles also gets props for some homage in the movie, for those of you who like that sort of thing, by casting his father, Melvin (Sweetback's Badass Song, Sophisticated Gents) in a cameo role at the beginning of the flick for some "don't trust the man" advice to Lucky and for shooting a scene with Bill Cook talking to Lucky, who some of you will recognize as the Bible quoting older man who kills Wesely Snipes' character in New Jack City . Here, Cook has one brief scene and does utter the "you reap what you sow" line again in homage, but in different circumstances and, of course, he doesn't blow away Wesley like he did after saying the line in New Jack. Just a nice homage.
If you do give Hard Luck a shot, I would say that you definitely will need to watch it all the way through to determine how you really felt about it. For what that's worth.
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