This 2001 drama never grows roots deep enough to feel completely authentic.

| Jul 2, 2022

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 16, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 16, 2005

To say the love story was hard to believe, is putting it mildly--it was impossible to fathom.

| Original Score: C | Aug 15, 2004

Feels like it was crafted by an outsider, with the cliche-filled dialogue reading like a rough translation.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 20, 2003

One of those films where great acting and occasionally brilliant dialogue attempt to overcome an unbelievable plot and a cowardly Hollywood ending.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 12, 2003

The biggest flaw in Love the Hard Way is its total inability to coherently convey the passage of time.

Full Review | Aug 6, 2003

Brody pulls the juggling act off -- bringing to mind some riveting cinematic misfits before him, from Brando to McQueen to Pacino.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 1, 2003

There must be some reason to worry over the fate of these people, but it's not in the movie.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 25, 2003

Heartfelt but fatally overwrought romantic melodrama.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 11, 2003

Though the lanky, dreamy-eyed Brody shows range, he's got a dorky quality that's hard to dismiss -- his strutting his stuff sends eyes rolling.

| Jul 10, 2003

Brody has offbeat charisma, but it's no match for the corny dialogue he's given here, not to mention the Wild at Heart snakeskin jacket he wears.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 10, 2003

"Love the Hard Way" looks low budget and any box office will be made from those interested in seeing Brody in his post "Pianist" role...

| Original Score: C | Jul 9, 2003

As character studies of Jack and Claire, it is daring and inventive, and worthy of comparison with the films of a French master of criminal psychology like Jean-Pierre Melville.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 27, 2003

A dark, uneven character study.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 27, 2003

so damn weird in refusing to go where one expects that it maintains interest - too bad it missed a chance at last minute redemption with a satisfying conclusion

| Original Score: C+ | Jun 26, 2003

Brody creates exactly the taunting demi-monster who could inveigle Claire.

Full Review | Jun 25, 2003

It's a mostly clichd story about a good girl who falls for a bad boy and believes that their love is strong enough to make him change his ways. When has that ever worked -- in real life or the movies?

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 22, 2003

Annoying as it is in some ways, is worth seeing for Brody's performance alone.

| Jun 21, 2003

Brody's performance as Jack is about as good as that which won him the Oscar for The Pianist.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 20, 2003