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STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning After a plethora of awful straight to video movies that have given Steven Seagal some serious competition, Wesley Snipes has, quite inspiredly, reunited with Mario Van Peebles in what the back cover proudly proclaims as 'their first collaboration since New Jack City.' And while not quite up to New Jack standards, Hard Luck is still a neat and tense ride with a horrifying mean streak running right through it.The fun begins when Lucky (Wesley) a former drug dealer recently released from prison and trying to go straight, is given another kick in the teeth when the government withdraws funds for his samba dance classes aiming to keep kids off the streets. This leads him into the bad influences of two old hood homies who lure him to a strip club under false pretences and, when a drug deal with some dangerous mobsters goes bad, finds him on the run with a feisty Cuban stripper and a suitcase full of cash. It all builds up to an explosive final showdown with Det. Davis (Peebles) who's been on Lucky's case since leaving jail and sadistic killers Cass (Cybill Shepherd) and Chang (James Hiroyuki Liao.) Returning as both star and director, Peebles has taken his chance to cash in on the obviously still burning 9/11 nihilism and tap into the audience's vicious instincts with the sick and really rather unpleasant serial killer subplot. It's hard to concentrate on Lucky's plight as the main story when we're so desperate for these two twisted bas*ards to get their comeuppance and it's as though Peebles was playing us all along with this, messing with our minds and dragging us along for the nasty ride. The light and dark tone of the two stories rest uneasily together, and make for a rather strange film indeed. It's a still a gripping film, though, with a nice soundtrack and Snipes, while not at his best, still trying to ride things snazzily along, dishing out witty quips with voice-over work. Weirdly, as the ringleader of the circus, Peebles gives himself very limited screen-time but makes an impression in his role and shows a nice lack of ego. Meanwhile in the villainous roles, Shepherd leaves a nasty taste in the mouth as a twisted, heartless murdering bitch, out-shining Chang as her lover.Vibrant, flashy and sick, Hard Luck ends up making for a prickly, uneven but memorable ride. ****
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