Just watched HARD LUCK, the latest DTV Wesley Snipes flick, co-written and directed by Mario Van Peebles. Obviously, NEW JACK CITY is long behind both of these guys, but there is a certain charm in the inherent badness of HARD LUCK. I don't even know that I'd say it's a "bad" movie--bizarre, schizophrenic, unfocused, yes, but it's never boring.

It seems Van Peebles and co-writer Larry Brand (wasn't he a fixture of Roger Corman's Concorde in the late '80s?) couldn't figure out whether to make a straightforward Snipes action movie or a SAW ripoff, so we get both. I really think these are two scripts that got fused together at some point.


SPOILERS


Long story short, Snipes is a reformed criminal who ends up with two suitcases full of cash from a police evidence room, and he's on the run with stripper Jacquelyn Quinones. Meanwhile, Cybill Shepherd and her much-younger boyfriend are abducting, torturing, and killing people. Meanwhile, angry detective Mario Van Peebles has a personal vendetta with Snipes AND is working the "Sawtooth Killers" case. Any bets these stories will converge by the end?


END SPOILERS

If this plot wasn't busy enough, Van Peebles works in Luis Guzman as a gay porn kingpin and uses Hurricane Katrina as a plot device. It struck me while watching HARD LUCK that it's about ten years too late--it really seems more suited to that slew of post-PULP FICTION offerings--outside of the horrific SAW portions of the film, it really reminded me of something like 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY or TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. Lots of smartass dialogue mixed with some thoroughly bizarre plot elements--what's with the cool-looking but completely out-of-nowhere, illogical long take of Van Peebles berating another detective while riding circles around him on a bicycle (other than Van Peebles the director giving Van Peebles the actor a memorable intro)? Nothing in this movie makes any sense, but the cast, especially Shepherd, seems to be having a good time. At the same time, it seems too much like a prefab cult movie, the kind of film that aspires to be a cult movie but doesn't know that cult movies BECOME cult movies over time; they aren't MADE as cult movies.

Anyone else see this?