Overrated

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Awesome Movie

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Let me start this review with 3 funny facts about this flick: First one, "Hard Cash" could be played as a 'Six Degrees of Christian Slater' trivia game: Slater & Val Kilmer were also together in "True Romance" & "Mindhunters"; Slater & Bokeem Woodbine in "3000 Miles to Graceland"; Slater & Balthazar Getty in "Young Guns 2" and so on... Second, if in the late 80's to the early 90's this pack of promising leading stars had a time machine to look up what they will end up doing: Val Kilmer that came from "Top Gun", "The Doors" & "Tombstone"; Christian Slater from "The Name of the Rose"; "Pump Up the Volume" or "Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves" and Darryl Hannah from "Splash", "Roxanne" & "Wall Street", it would be a riot. Third, "Hard Cash" it's just a plot rehash of several other movies that this group of actors were previous in, such as Slater's "Hard Rain" or "3000 Miles to Graceland"; Kilmer's "Kill Me Again" in a "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" character mode; William Forsythe doing what he does best, playing an effective douchebag & Peter Jason in a short cameo almost reprising his way similar character from "Johnny Handsome". The team behind "The Expendables" franchise produced it in a direct-to- DVD low budget style: the sets are cheap looking; the action sequences poorly staged; the plot is a mess; the direction is pedestrian and the performances all around are over-the-top caricatures, so why in the hell is this movie so entertaining ? Maybe because it's so twisted & off-beat, sometimes looks like a straight action / thriller / heist flick and others just a parody of the genre, that lifts up its own watchable factor ? Or the cast full of well-known (more like has-been's...) faces that signed to act in it just desperate for the dime that enhanced what it could have been a thrash can movie to a level of capture the morbid curiosity of the movie-goer ? (Well, even the Mini-Me guy from "Austin Powers" is in it...) Sincerely, I do not know, but in the meanwhile this movie works as a pure escapist B-grade flick for an uncritical viewer which accepts hitchhike this ride into the almost realms of absurdism. Footnote: For movie buffs, "Hard Cash" reminds me a lot of the B-movie director Gene Quintano's works such as "Honeymoon Academy"; "Why Me ?" or "Loaded Weapon 1": cheap made; frantic pacing and an unpretentious sense of surrealism in comedy.

Val Kilmer has chalked up an impressive resume. Some of his films have garnered many top awards and impressive accolades. Select a series of action or dramatic films and you'll find his name listed therein. Alright, he's appeared in a few schmaltzy movies too, but there are others which more than make up for them. Here is one case in Point. The film is called "Run for the Money" also known as " Hard Cash. " The lively story is of a recently paroled thief named Taylor (Christian Slater) who has promised his little girl he will not steal any more, but soon after is ensnared by a corrupt F.B.I. agent (Val Kilmer) who extorts Taylor to rob a Casino's earnings of $6 Million in return for his daughter's life. Having little choice, Taylor assembles a motley crew and sets out to rescue his daughter with the help of his combative and argumentative gang. A fine cast which includes Balthazar Getty, Daryl Hannah, Michael Rosas and Verne Troyer as Attila prove their worth in creating a surprising and exciting drama. The intricacy of the movie is the crossing and double crossing of plans which moves this film rapidly along. Kilmer is very interesting as the heavy, a role he so often avoids. Nevertheless, and despite the occasional cheesy segments, this could very well become a sleeping Classic for Kilmer and Slater. ****

I went into this movie not expecting it to be great. Actually, I was expecting it be horrible, based on the all the reviews I had read. But I actually had a lot of fun with this. I will say that apart from the price of having Slater and Kilmer in your movie, this movie probably didn't cost that much to make. The story focuses on Slater, who has just gotten out of prison and is coming home to see his girlfriend and daughter. He gets involved in a heist, but it goes bad when an FBI agent (Kilmer) holds his daughter for ransom if he doesn't do what he wants. Apart from that, the people he pulled the heist with want their money too. There's also a Russian mobster, who is absolutely hilarious. The movie keeps you in suspense, with good action scenes and mediocre car chases. There are a few plots in the movie, which is why it gets a 6 instead of a 7.

How could a movie with Val Kilmer AND Christian Slater go so wrong? It starts out strong with a clever theft plan, but then the plan AND the movie sort of fall apart (although the theft scenes are fun to watch). Both Val and Christian bring their usual acting skills to bear, but their characters are not well written, so we end up not really caring what happens to them. The dialog is weak for most of the movie, with no really memorable lines, and there are a number of poorly supported plot twists, such as the cuckolding and betrayal among a trio of secondary characters and the sudden death of another secondary character (the circumstances surrounding his death are somewhat ambiguous, which only further weakens the movie). Add to this a collection of clichés (such as Christian Slater's casting aside the stolen money because his daughter doesn't want him to be a thief anymore), and you have a movie which leaves the viewer feeling unimpressed and cheated out of the time it took to watch.