September 14, 2009

Run for the Money (2002) aka Hard Cash

Val Kilmer plays a corrupt FBI agent in this slapdash Christian Slater-led crime caper. The plot is pretty outlandish. Christian Slater's character is a member of a gang of thieves who ends up taking the fall for a robbery gone bad. When he gets out of jail, he goes home to his love interest's trailer. She's been raising his daughter while he's in the slammer. While he promises his lil' sweet pea that he's going to lead an honest life from now on, the love interest is pressing him to make a couple big robberies so they can run away somewhere and start fresh. Side note, isn't it striking how many crime movies involve characters planning to run away somewhere and live fabulously wealthy new lives?

So things are going good for Christian Slater until he crosses Val Kilmer (and his partner)! As a psychotic and corrupt FBI agent, who is apparently not answerable to any sort of direct supervisor, Kilmer had been plotting out robbing the same off track betting parlor that Slater's gang takes out. It leads to a bunch of "haven't we seen this before" sort of action movie gimmicks with the corrupt cops kidnapping the daughter, a bunch of people dying, and a boat blowing up.

The strangest thing about this movie is that it seems to have mostly been meant for international markets. There's about three different working titles for it and a bunch of information about the international release dates on the imdb page.