Love the Hard Way

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.