Hey folks, Harry here... Once again, Capone's a champ and comes in with a look at a film this summer that should grab your attention between the explosions and deafening use of the bass in theaters surrounding us these days. Capone's bringing us a review of Adrian Brody in LOVE THE HARD WAY (Trailer here), so get to reading and considering spending your film money wisely!
Hey everyone, Capone in Chicago here...
Before his Oscar-winning turn in THE PIANIST, I’d bet that most of you couldn’t name three movies Adrien Brody had been in, and that’s alright because most of them barely registered to mainstream movie-going audience. Most people saw him first as the Anglo-wannabe Richie in Spike Lee’s masterful SUMMER OF SAM. I first saw him a year earlier in two indie films out of New York called RESTAURANT and SIX WAYS TO SUNDAY, as well as his brief appearance in THE THIN RED LINE. His villainous turn in OXYGEN (wrongfully banished to directly to cable) is great. He started to get more notoriety in works like LIBERTY HEIGHTS, BREAD AND ROSES, and the underrated HARRISON’S FLOWERS. Brody actually films his latest release, LOVE THE HARD WAY, before he wowed the world in THE PIANIST, and the role might be his most complex to date.
LOVE THE HARD WAY is about Jack (Brody), a Bronx-based small-time blackmailer who tricks rich businessmen visiting a certain New York City hotel out of all that they have on them. By working with hotel desk clerk Jeff (August Diehl), Jack,his partner Charlie (the great Jon Seda), and two beautiful actresses posing as prostitutes set up a fake bust that ends with the businessmen handing over money, watches, and every other valuable thing they have on them. It’s a great scam that never fails, but a sassy vice cop (Pam Grier) is on to the crew. Jack is smart but not smart enough to end the con when vice starts sniffing around.
In his spare time, Jack likes to go to the movies. There he meets concession counter worker Claire (Charlotte Ayanna), a straight-A college student who seems far too intelligent to fall for his snakeskin jacket and snake-like charm, but that doesn’t stop her. Jack is more about the pursuit and capture than actually having a relationship with Claire, but she falls hard for him and starts obsessing over every phone call he does or doesn’t make or return. Soon she starts showing up at his apartment unannounced and frankly embarrassing herself over him. Her grades take a nose dive; her friends try to help but she ignore their advice; even catching him in bed with another woman doesn’t do the trick. She’s hooking in a self-destructive way, and it hurts to watch what happens to her. Brody is absolutely brilliant as the distanced, unavailable cad. This is not some sort of loveable womanizer; he is truly a guy you could grow to hate. The realization that Claire might be the best thing that’s ever entered his live comes too late for both of them, and Jack’s tough-guy facade causes them both to suffer immeasurably. LOVE THE HARD WAY is about a relationship and people falling to pieces. They may eventually be put back together but fragments will still be missing. And as good as Brody is here, the performance that absolutely floored me was Charlotte Ayanna. I haven’t seen a more convincing portrait of someone willingly throwing their life down the toilet since Jennifer Connelly in REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Her frailty is so sad and so heart-breaking that you scared about how far she’ll go to get Jack’s attention. I’ve seen Ayanna in smaller parts in TRAINING DAY, SPUN, KATE & LEOPOLD, and perhaps most memorably in DANCING AT THE BLUE IGUANA, but I never realized what she was capable of until this film. You have to see it to believe it.
Because of its downbeat subject matter, LOVE THE HARD WAY isn’t getting a massive release, but it is (or will be) out there. It opens in Chicago at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema on June 27. Look for it.
Capone
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