Mario Van Peebles has done some good work in his past but this bizarre, confusing, silly dud is not one of them. The script feels like someone gave a party for wannabe writers, told them each to submit a plot for a far out film, then mixed them all together and came up with a hash that in the end is merely a re-do of the bad guy turned good guy on the run - with diversions.
Lucky (Wesley Snipes) is released from prison with the plan of going straight. Of course his buddy covets his reputation and invites him to his birthday party where Lucky lusts after a pole dancer Angela (Jackie Quinones) and manages to become involved in a dirty cop drug deal that sends him on the usual wild car chase with Angela looking for a way to hideout with the corrupt money stashed in metal suitcases (rigged of course). After a shootout in a motel, the couple seeks housing from a gay porno filmmaker Mendez (Luis Guzmán in yet another chameleon role) and his associate Antonio (Gavin J. Behrman) who just happens to be in on the dirty cop aspect of the drug deal.
Off Lucky and Angela drive to a wooded area where they hole up next door to a weirdo pair of serial killers - Cass (Cybill Shepherd), who is angry at the world for negative response to her retarded grown son Eugene (Mike Messier), and Chang (James Hiroyuki Liao), Cass's strangely sick lover and wannabe martial arts expert (yeah, that is thrown in, too) - who kidnap victims and torture and kill them in Hollywood-style videotaped sequences. Of course, when Lucky and Angela need telephone help, Lucky goes next door, is immediately strapped into a torture chair, only eventually to be discovered by the bad of bad cops and one decent cop, Captain Davis, played by Mario Van Peebles of course. And things change and intertwine and nobody really cares.
Wesley Snipes does have charisma and it is because of him that the film is watchable, but even his role doesn't explain why this mess was made in the first place. It looks and sounds like a very low budget film on which probably millions were spent. Pass on this one unless you're in the mood to laugh AT a movie instead of with one. Grady Harp
Lucky (Wesley Snipes) is released from prison with the plan of going straight. Of course his buddy covets his reputation and invites him to his birthday party where Lucky lusts after a pole dancer Angela (Jackie Quinones) and manages to become involved in a dirty cop drug deal that sends him on the usual wild car chase with Angela looking for a way to hideout with the corrupt money stashed in metal suitcases (rigged of course). After a shootout in a motel, the couple seeks housing from a gay porno filmmaker Mendez (Luis Guzmán in yet another chameleon role) and his associate Antonio (Gavin J. Behrman) who just happens to be in on the dirty cop aspect of the drug deal.
Off Lucky and Angela drive to a wooded area where they hole up next door to a weirdo pair of serial killers - Cass (Cybill Shepherd), who is angry at the world for negative response to her retarded grown son Eugene (Mike Messier), and Chang (James Hiroyuki Liao), Cass's strangely sick lover and wannabe martial arts expert (yeah, that is thrown in, too) - who kidnap victims and torture and kill them in Hollywood-style videotaped sequences. Of course, when Lucky and Angela need telephone help, Lucky goes next door, is immediately strapped into a torture chair, only eventually to be discovered by the bad of bad cops and one decent cop, Captain Davis, played by Mario Van Peebles of course. And things change and intertwine and nobody really cares.
Wesley Snipes does have charisma and it is because of him that the film is watchable, but even his role doesn't explain why this mess was made in the first place. It looks and sounds like a very low budget film on which probably millions were spent. Pass on this one unless you're in the mood to laugh AT a movie instead of with one. Grady Harp