The Hard Easy (2006) User Reviews

Surprisingly Funny and Entertaining

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 31 January 2008]

In Los Angeles, the gambler Paul Weston (Henry Thomas) is a loser, and owes a lot of money to the dangerous mobster Freddie (Rae Allen). When he is brutally beaten and the life of his former wife is threatened by the Freddie, his acquaintance bartender Vinnie (Gary Busey) sends him to Dr. Charlie Brooks (Vera Farmiga) first and then he convinces him to participate of a heist in the jewelry district with the professional thief Gene (Bruce Dern) to raise the necessary money to pay his debt. Meanwhile, the stock market broker Roger Hargitay (David Boreanaz) finds that the company where he works embezzled US$ 5,000,000.00 from their clients and he will be arrested in a couple of days. His boss Ed Koster (Peter Weller) convinces Roger and two co-workers to participate in an easy robbery of a jewelry planned by an inside man. On Saturday morning, both gangs arrive in the same jewelry for the same heist at the same time.

"The Hard Easy" is a surprisingly funny and entertaining movie. The screenplay is well developed and the direction and acting are good, in spite of the exaggerated and histrionic performance of Peter Weller. The scene where Vera Farmiga "rapes" Henry Thomas is very sexy, and I really liked this film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Duplo Assalto" ("Double Heist")

"E" for effort for Nick Lachey

[hancock11 · 7/10 · 17 March 2007]

This was a good story and executed well. I have seen better and I have seen much worse. Some of the acting felt a little forced and a little over the top. The acting from Bruce Dern and Gary Bucey was great. Nick Lachey was surprisingly good until his death scene which was a little lack luster. Vera Farmiga's and Peter Weller's characters were a little much for my taste and tended be way over the top. There weren't anymore F bombs or violence in this film than any other films I have seen in the past. Goodfellas is a good example. David Boreanas looked really good in this film oh and his acting wasn't bad either. This film is by no means a waste of time or a disappointment. I would not only recommend this film to David Boreanaz and Nick Lachey fans but Bruce Dern fans as well.

More f bombs than a prison movie!

[guitarcarl · 5/10 · 7 October 2006]

I would have gladly given this movie a solid 7 or 8 but I got sick of the constant f bombs! Every character used the f word repeatedly. Even the female doctor. The story was good, the cast was stellar the plot worked, but the excessive use of the f word made the movie sound and feel silly and childish. Reminded me of middle school kids smoking and cussing at the buss stop. They think it makes them look cool but really it does the opposite. It was over done and it distracted from the movie.

I'm not a prude by the way; I'm a contractor that works with construction guys all around Pearl Harbor! I'm around sailors often enough to know why they coined the phrase "cuss like a sailor" It doesn't bother me to hear the F word. However, I don't hear the f word as much in a month on the job site! If the writer and director talk like this in their professional and personal lives they need to get a little class.

If you don't mind a constant barrage of f bombs then you are going to like this movie. But be warned, if your kids are watching you may need to wash some mouths out with soap before all is said and done.

45 Minutes of Movie, Padded to Feature Length

[Quicksand · 6/10 · 22 July 2008]

David Boreanaz is not the world's greatest actor. I know this. He has good instincts, and has even been decent in some projects, but without an experienced director to really tell him what to do, he does tend to come off looking a little amateurish.

Don't know who Ari Ryan is, but kudos to him for getting a film made. I'm sure he was paid very well. But his direction is simplistic and camera-work uninspired (and at times confusing), and for the first hour, all the characters do is bark at one another, whining about how they're not going to take part in a heist that we already know from the first scene is going to take place.

There ARE a few good one-liners... but veteran actors like Peter Weller, Bruce Dern, and even Henry Thomas (hey, he's been doing this since 1982) know how to make it work. Gary Busey managed to act sober for nearly all of his scenes. Vera Farmiga was a year away from "The Departed," and certainly does her best with what's given her, though that isn't much. Her character takes an unnecessary u-turn late in the movie, and she motivates it as best she can. But left field is left field, and lousy writing is lousy writing.

The rest of the performances just kind of lay there. To even call Nick Lachey an actor is an insult to actual actors. The plot synopsis promised two gangs of thieves doing a heist at the same bank on the same day, but the reality is that (a) it's not a bank, it's a jewelry store, (b) they're not thieves, they're amateurs, and (c) we see a bit of the heist in the opening scene, then we flashback and they spend 90 minutes talking about it, to get us back there. We already know it's going to happen, so where's the dilemma? Get to the good stuff, man, it's fun to watch RoboCop berate people and all, but no one's going to see your movie just because of Weller in a supporting role.

Really you could ditch most of the movies first half; Henry Thomas' character is at least interesting (the lovable loser), but then the movie takes a giant crap on everyone around him in the final act, making all that set-up completely irrelevant. Boreanaz' half of the movie isn't interesting at all; His character is a selfish, materialistic jerk, and he's surrounded by selfish, materialistic jerks. The audience isn't interested. Get on with it.

As a short film, this might work. It was a good idea. Unwatchable action sequences, too much exposition and too many bad actors nearly ruin the whole affair. The few good actors make it watchable... but when it ends, you'll wonder what the point of the first 60 minutes was, if the filmmakers care so little about the characters they took pains to create.

6/10. Someone give Henry Thomas a better movie, already.

This movie makes it EASY to see why crime is HARD

[charlytully · 6/10 · 14 April 2009]

I've always wondered why in movies folks can shoot off 200 or 300 rounds from AK-47s at someone such as Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, or Arnold Schwarzenegger without drawing blood, while in real life a cop will draw his service revolver thinking it's his TAZER and kill someone dead. The first person (of 11) shown shot to death in this film is snuffed out in that gray area of accidentally-on-purpose, which seems more realistic than the events of most crime flicks. (This victim is the only black character in THE HARD EASY, but this is no doubt the result of random unconsciousness on the part of first-time director Ari Ryan.) Ryan uses a lot of restraint (which he credits to his limited CGI budget during the DVD "bonus" director's interview) in pulling back from a RESERVOIR DOGS-level of violence, so when it appears a loan shark is cutting off the main character's pinkie, it later turns out it was "only" broken (and a "clean" break, at that!). If film-goers were given a prospectus on the 11 main characters in advance, they probably would put the two eventual survivors among their top three to "stay on the island." Therefore, this movie gets the maximum rating its limited budget and corresponding cast could hope to attain.

Waste of time

[evanherold · 2/10 · 25 December 2011]

Just a lazy worthless pile... this movie is so inept everyone - including the catering crew - should be banned from ever making a flick again.

I lost track at the redundancies -- If you deleted all the scenes in which one person is trying to convince another person about agreeing to the heist, you'd have a film 45 minutes shorter. Same with the characterizations -- yeah, the guys are hard up for money. Got that the first five times it was mentioned.

Anyway, anyone who is interested in writing a screenplay should definitely watch this - any doubts about your lack of ability will vanish.

liked vera farmiga

[Lurchi · 6/10 · 22 February 2007]

just wanted to say, that the score is absolutely terrible. even in mid-90s this was dated. and, yes, some of the actors do a good job, mostly it is just average. thank god vera farmiga was in this one. i won't really recommend it. really not. what else. this e.t.guy is quite okay in it. the plot: starts okay, but the characters are just way to plain, and it gets worse every minute. one good thing about it, the robbery scene is well cut, time leap forward and backward, well done, but again sucking score and to thin characters. actually, the longer i think about it, the thinner the people get. add some violence and ready you are. won't complain about the f-words, didn't disturb me.

What did i just watch?

[CineCritic2517 · 1/10 · 4 October 2006]

Hello,

Trying my best to write a decent comment on this movie is frankly more than this movie deserves. So I wont bother.

This was like watching a really bad episode of the A-team, was this supposed to be a comedy? if so...why wasn't there any in it? If this was supposed to be an action movie, then why the elaborate pointless drama? If this was supposed to be a rip off of any and all bankjob movies then why in Gods name didn't they just make a rip off? Oh, it was a crime/drama ey? Sure, of course it was...silly me.

Right from the start this turkey really hits bottom, then digs. And boy can it dig.

1/10 is generous voting and a general rating of 5.8 is plainly absurd to the point of being insulting.

If u liked this, really, spare no costs, have a brain surgery...

The Bored Fast (2006)

[Seth_Rogue_One · 2/10 · 23 February 2016]

A pretty awful Tarrantino try-hard wannabe flick with poor characterisations and a plot that is supposed to be exciting I suppose that just gets dull due to well pretty much any factor.

The acting is below average, most of the actors are decent usually (with exception of Jessica Simpson's ex-husband Nick Lachey who was equally bad in 'RISE (2007)').

Vera Farmiga is usually one of my favourite actresses but I have no idea why she did this movie, granted she wasn't a household name when the movie was made, which spent years on the shelves before being released straight to DVD in the US (unsurprising I'm sure to those that have seen it) and she can't carry this turd up no matter how hard she tries (even though she doesn't).

It starts with the main players robbing a bank then it goes back into time for the next hour of how this robbery came to be and it is truly a unfascinating story of the same old same old with no true struggles that could be able to gain interest with the viewers.

The movie also flows very badly, the editing is terrible, occasionally fast cut and occasionally few and long single shots in a scene there is no real rhyme or reason to it either, feels very amateurish.

And throw in a bunch of f-bombs that screams of desperation to keep the edge and coolness of the movie, but it fails, as does the movie on all accounts.

Very interesting story!

[slimebitch · 8/10 · 8 January 2007]

I read the previous user comment on "The hard easy" and expected the worst. The person said "If u liked this, really, spare no costs, have a brain surgery...". Sad to say, this person must have not seen this movie or needs a brain surgery himself in my opinion. I would say easily that this is the better action I have seen in a long time and that's why I give it 8/10. Names like David Boreanaz, Bruce Dern, Gary Busey and Peter Weller probably made this movie a bit more interesting than it should have been. I will give "The hard easy" extra credit for showing off David Boreanaz very nice shaped upper body. Yummy! Anyway, this is not a movie for highly religious people. The F*** word is there a lot. Actually, that is a word used in every other sentence. But besides that, the story was fun and twisting. The acting was good, even from Nick Lachey who I was not to sure about since he is a musician and has not done much before this. I assure everyone who has some IQ and liked this movie that you don't need a brain surgery! Watch "The hard easy", it is a very interesting movie and if you watch it to the end, you would get the point of this movie as well.

A solid debut

[GFrank1 · 9/10 · 8 June 2008]

Sure, it's a genre picture, but a stylishly directed and well acted one. First time helmer Ryan especially gets great performances out of the character actors (Weller and Dern) who haven't had a chance to strut their stuff on screen like this in years. I do wish Ryan's talents in striking a nice balance between action, noir, and drama had been matched by a smarter screenplay (you want the plot to twist more and not just thicken). However, all in all it's a great showcase for some fine acting (not only by the aforementioned Weller and Dern; Farmiga, Boreanaz, and especially Thomas also come off quite well)and director Ryan, who seems to exhibit the same muscular craftsmanship of a young Sidney Lumet or Michael Mann.