Hard Luck

: "For the silent film, see Hard Luck (1921 film)"Infobox_Film
name= Hard Luck


caption= DVD cover
imdb_id=0489070
writer= Larry Brand
Mario Van Peebles
starring= Wesley Snipes
Cybill Shepherd
director= Mario Van Peebles
producer= Brad Wyman
Mario Van Peebles
music= Tree Adams | distributor=Sony Pictures
released= October 17, 2006
runtime= |101 minutes
language= English
movie_series=
awards=
budget= |

"Hard Luck" is a 2006 film reuniting Mario Van Peebles and Wesley Snipes, who also worked together in the 1991 film "New Jack City". Hard Luck features Wesley Snipes as Lucky, a down-on-his-luck former criminal and drug dealer whose post-prison trials and tribulations take him on a wild adventure. The film is set two years after Hurricane Katrina, so it takes place in the year 2007.

Plot

The fun begins when Lucky (Wesley Snipes) is released from prison and tries to lead a respectable life despite his troubled past. Lucky frequently reflects on the wisdom of his grandfather who always told him "sometimes without bad luck, it would seem you don't have any luck at all." This theme is manifested throughout the film. Shortly after his release from prison, Lucky tries to get back on his feet but ends up a victim of Hurricane Katrina's wrath, and loses his newly founded life. After moving back to New York, Lucky is dealt another blow when the government withdraws funds for his samba dance classes which he uses to try to keep kids off of the streets. This unfortunate event leads to Lucky enduring the bad influences of two old friends from his past life as a criminal, who lure Lucky to a strip club under the false pretense of one his friend's birthday. When a drug deal with some dangerous mobsters goes bad, Lucky is now on the run with a feisty Cuban stripper from the strip club, Angie (Jackie Quinones), and over $500,000 in American currency, which is wired with marking dye.

Throughout the film, there are cuts of an unconventional and troubled couple, known to the police as the sawtooth serial killers. James Hiroyuki Liao plays Chang, an egotistical and maniacal accomplice to Cass, played by Cybill Shepherd, a mother of a mentally challenged boy named Eugene (Mike Messier). Motivated by Cass' son's unpleasant experiences with society's rejection of mentally challenged individuals, the couple brutally kidnaps, tortures, and presumably kills their abductees, recording their exploits on video, possibly for future viewing.

These two stories merge at the end as Angie and Lucky find themselves caught up in the path of violence, and Lucky ends up an unlikely hero by saving the life of a would-be victim of the sawtooth killers. The film culminates with Lucky saving the police officer played by Van Peebles, from Cass's son Eugene who is armed with a shovel. Lucky, choosing to have a positive outlook on the events by using perspective gained from his grandfather, characterizes the events by describing them as being "the luckiest day in an unlucky man's life." Lucky and Angie go on to receive a $200,000 reward which had been offered by the police for information leading the capture, arrest, and/or prosecution of the sawtooth killers.

Hard Luck was filmed in Rhode Island and some of the key supporting characters were played by local actors such as Mike Messier (Cybill Shepherd's "mentally challenged" son), Sayed Najem (hotel mananger) and Darya Zabinksi (cashier). These parts were cast by Rhode Island casting director Anne Mulhall of LDI (Let's Do It) Casting.

The movie is comparable to Pulp Fiction in terms of its plot structure - three separate story lines merge into one another.

In 2008, Hard Luck was picked up for broadcast by the USA Network and is viewable in High Definition.