Truly Dreadful Film

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I don't really understand the reviews praising it to the skies, not terrible but no one can say that it wasn't without it's flaws for sure.The feeling in terms of look and acting is more or less of a 90's TV movie, the actual movie dabbles with a lot more psychologically darker elements though in the second half but I feel that it merely scratches the surface of that and doesn't really go down to the core of the issue and it just doesn't feel like a natural progress.I can't really go into details without spoiling it but let's just say that you can't really complain about lack of character development because of that there's plenty, it just doesn't feel like it was handled in a realistic way the changes are pretty instantaneous.Anyway, the movie also comes with a hip hop soundtrack which isn't all bad and nothing really screams hip hop like Adrien Brody with a ton of hair-gel making his hair stand in all directions and a snakeskin suit-jacket.Or wait maybe it does, maybe Jon Seda in a Charlie Chaplin suit with a hat to match does?Jokes aside, that is actual clothes that the characters wear casually in the movie and in the bonusmaterial Jon Seda says that the director (who's German) helped picking out the wardrobe and I'm thinking maybe that wasn't the best idea cause it gets distracting at times, they are supposed to be to guys from the hood (hence the hiphop soundtrack) and even though Seda manages to convey that regardless of what he's wearing Brody could have done with some Rocawear or something to make it seem legit.Overall it does have some interesting turns for a romance but it doesn't quite hit it's mark... 5.4/10, very close to a 5.5/10 which would sway me into rounding it up to a 6 but like they say close but no cigar.

Pam Grier steals this film and she's only on screen for five minutes total. She's a whole lot of woman! Just kidding. I liked Love the Hard Way. Here is an attempt at a modern romantic myth, namely the American Virgin. Sure men want their love chick to be pure, to raise sons and daughters that are yours and yours alone, but Adrien Brody is a young thief in a porno world he did not make. After all, he's slept with 200 women. So in between hotel sleaze capers, he beds innocent Columbia biology genius with the big chest, Charlotte Avanna, and our Lothario gets more than he bargained for as his virgin becomes promiscuous in the cause of thievery. Naturally, our hero is stunned, angry, and confused.Charlottes' revenge or strategy to get her man is pretty far fetched, but the director has created an atmosphere of slimy New York thieves on the make with a rap film score and big Cadillac's squealing tires amidst the riff raff, so we sort of believe the unbelievable. It's a nice try in the same vein as Tarentino's script, True Romance, but LTHW is grittier.

This movie is not a high dollar production. It doesn't need to be. This movie is emotional, intellectual, heart-wrenching and sadly beautiful. I experienced a similar overall feeling from watching "Gia" - a movie about supermodels and the pitfalls of modeling (That happens to be Angelina Jolie's best film - unlike her others, and worth watching.) What Love the Hard Way has, that other films don't, are characters who you really connect with. Not because you share things in common with them, but because they are multi-faceted beings with enough background story to deeply invest the viewer in their fate.This review/comment isn't going like I had planned. I think the IMDb rating of this film is far too low, and I think those people who gave it a low score were either not paying attention, or not allowing themselves to do so.Which isn't surprising, because this film is hard to watch at times. Not because it's dull or poorly constructed, but because you don't want to feel the pain.Watch it. The Ying and Yang are in full blossom here.

I first saw Love the Hard Way on cable and absolutely loved it, probably because it kinda resembled my relationship with my ex boyfriend. I did not do anything that Claire did, but my ex, was very much like Jack, with sleeping with other girls and lying, but yet was in love with me. My ex did change over time like Jack did, but he only did it by my threatening to leave him. If Claire would have threatened to leave him, I think it would have affected him but not as much as other people. I never changed myself to make my ex love me because I thought there was something wrong with me. Claire did that but only because every one of Jack's friends told her she doesn't belong in that life. After watching the DVD features, which I suggest any fan of this film to do, the ending that I had hoped for... the walk didn't end at the lab... was true. There is a deleted scene of them visiting Charlie in jail, and also there's a commentary on the making of the movie. It's very useful and it makes people who know that Jack changed for Claire and had hope for the two to be together, learn that they ended up together. There was too much of a bond to let that go between them. I praise the director/writer for his work on this movie.