Luck of the Draw

Not just one or two of them, but ALL of them.

This is a cops-and-robbers flick that has more competing parties than "Lock, Stock ...". The loot is stolen treasury plates. We have a French gang. We have Denis Hopper's mafia-type gang. We have Michael Madsen. We have Ice-T and the boys. We have corrupt federal agents. The Riddler is the accountant for several of the gangs. And we have a free-lance Irish terrorist, two crooked bankers, one crooked cop, and I don't know what all.

The film begins with a massive shoot-out between the feds, the French, and the mafia. As they blow each other away, the plates end up in the hands of a doofus who grabs a suitcase and runs off unnoticed in the melee. Eventually several very mean men, representing many different gangs, find out doofus has the plates, and everybody tries to claim them eventually.

NUDITY REPORT

Wendy Benson, the female lead, was briefly topless in a dark love scene.

Susan Petrie, as Hopper's girl, was topless in two extended scenes.

Four girls were naked in Madsen's bed, although only three of them exposed and naughty bits. The four girls were Tess Broussard, Alexandra Nice, Kira Reed, and Regina Russell

DVD info from Amazon.

no widescreen

no meaningful features

You won't give a fig for how it ends up. Just before the plates and the money end up in their final distribution, everybody in the entire movie is standing in a circle with their guns pointed at each other, and then they start blasting away, ala True Romance. In fact the entire movie is basically a grade-b version of True Romance. And that was kinda dumb when it was original.

The movie was directed by Luca Bercovici. Do you believe that guy is still around. In case you've forgotten him (and who hasn't?), he's the guy who directed Ghoulies.

The Critics Vote

no major reviews

The People Vote ...

With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 4.2

With their dollars ... brief theatrical releases overseas, but no widescreen version available! Straight-to-vid in the USA

IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a D. Not dreadful by straight-to-vid standards, but a sub-par cops-'n-robbers movie. All the violence of a Tarantino movie, with all the boring witty stuff removed, so you can get right to the shootings and beatings