Today’s quick review: Hard Luck. The sole survivor of an arms deal gone bad, Lucky (Wesley Snipes), a reformed criminal, gets away with two cases containing $500,000 in cash. Along the way, he carjacks Angela (Jacquelyn Quinones), a stripper who demands a share of the money. But their flight from the law takes a bad turn when they cross paths with Cass (Cybill Shepherd) and Chang (James Hiroyuki Liao), a pair of sadistic serial killers.
Hard Luck is a crime drama with black comedy elements. Wesley Snipes stars as Lucky, a New York hustler who made an honest effort to turn his life around, only to get dealt a bad hand. On the run from a crooked cop (Kevin Chapman) and an honest one (Mario Van Peebles), Lucky’s only ally is a stripper who barely trusts him. Stylized presentation and a suitably convoluted plot are offset by mismatched plot threads and an uneven tone.
Hard Luck has the makings of a fun movie. Lucky and Angela get along well: two strong, flawed personalities who are neither as cruel nor as greedy as the people around them. Seeing them gradually come to trust each other is satisfying, as is seeing them try to find a way out of the bind they are in. Hard Luck also spruces up its story with an active presentation style, using music, color, and camerawork to keep things fresh.
Where Hard Luck runs into problems is figuring out what to do with its setup. The movie attempts to marry two very different plots: Lucky’s race to get away with the cash, and Cass and Chang’s spree of kidnapping and torture. What it ends up with is jarring. Cass and Chang’s story is far darker than anything else in the movie. By indulging in it, Hard Luck not only sacrifices its jaunty tone but robs the main plot of a much-needed climax.
Hard Luck has the ingredients of a interesting crime flick, but it gambles them away on a darker and less compelling secondary plot thread. Those with a taste for the twisted will get something out of it, as will those who are willing to put up with the darker parts for the sake of the lighter ones. But anyone looking for a breezy adventure or a fully realized story will want to try elsewhere.
For a stylized crime drama and black comedy with similar ideas, try 68 Kill. For a thriller about a boy caught in a world of rapists and killers, try Running Scared. For a winding crime drama with better presentation, try Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown. For a more comedic one, try Get Shorty. For a noir mystery with similar snatches of style, try The Big Bang. For a surreal satire about two loving serial killers, try Natural Born Killers.
[5.1 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489070/). I give it a 6.0 for likable characters, snatches of style, and a mishandled tone.