It's as if this thing was made by some Rip Van Winkle who woke up after several decades of sleep and thought the ABC Mystery Movie was still on, then found out it wasn't and added some nudity and profanity to try and pass Jack of Hearts off as a modern piece of work.
Jack Newland (Louis Mandylor) is the new cop in Las Vegas and isn't in town for a day before getting mixed up in the feud between shady casino bosses Roy Mercant (Nick Mancuso) and Batossa (Ben Gazzara). Yeah, it's just Batossa. Like Cher or Madonna. Roy's accountant (Joe Penny) is murdered and everyone wants to find the books he's kept on Roy's troubled business. Roy wants them so he can finish a deal to build a new casino. Batossa wants them to blackmail Roy.
After banging one showgirl and having another get killed in his apartment, Jack gets caught up in a not-all-that-terribly complicated plot with nothing to rely on but his laughable wits and fairly pathetic fighting skills. After some cheesy action scenes, including throwing an incredibly fake looking mannequin off the Hoover Dam, Jack ends up victorious and then proves his penis is smarter than this brain.
Do you want to know the level of drama we're dealing with here? Jack actually drowns in the middle of the film and is dead for several minutes before being revived, then shakes off the experience like he stubbed his toe. There's another scene that could only happen through the use of teleportation and a third that would have required mental telepathy. This thing is written like a bad 70s cop show and looks like a bad 70s TV mystery movie. I'm also sure that at some point in its development, Jack of Hearts was intended to be the pilot episode of on ongoing series. There are just too many pilot-ish aspects of the story for there to be any other explanation.
There are three basic categories of bad films. There are ones made by people with skill and no talent; ones made by people with talent and no skill; and the disaster made by folks who have neither talent nor skill. Writer/director Serge Rodunsky is one of those no-talent craftsmen who only repeat what they've seen other filmmakers do and anything new or different only slips into the mix by accident. T hat happens a couple of times in Jack of Hearts. For example, when Jack's corrupt boss throws him off the case and asks for his badge and gun, Jack is willing to just give up and forget all about the mystery. It's a neat, human moment where Jack is just a guy trying to get through the day and has had enough of it all. Unfortunately, that moment is like someone lit a match it a pitch black room. For a second you can see something better, then it dies out and you're left in blackness again.
This movie isn't terrible. Jack of Hearts is a below average melodrama with an above average cast. There are certainly worse things to watch than this.
Jack Newland (Louis Mandylor) is the new cop in Las Vegas and isn't in town for a day before getting mixed up in the feud between shady casino bosses Roy Mercant (Nick Mancuso) and Batossa (Ben Gazzara). Yeah, it's just Batossa. Like Cher or Madonna. Roy's accountant (Joe Penny) is murdered and everyone wants to find the books he's kept on Roy's troubled business. Roy wants them so he can finish a deal to build a new casino. Batossa wants them to blackmail Roy.
After banging one showgirl and having another get killed in his apartment, Jack gets caught up in a not-all-that-terribly complicated plot with nothing to rely on but his laughable wits and fairly pathetic fighting skills. After some cheesy action scenes, including throwing an incredibly fake looking mannequin off the Hoover Dam, Jack ends up victorious and then proves his penis is smarter than this brain.
Do you want to know the level of drama we're dealing with here? Jack actually drowns in the middle of the film and is dead for several minutes before being revived, then shakes off the experience like he stubbed his toe. There's another scene that could only happen through the use of teleportation and a third that would have required mental telepathy. This thing is written like a bad 70s cop show and looks like a bad 70s TV mystery movie. I'm also sure that at some point in its development, Jack of Hearts was intended to be the pilot episode of on ongoing series. There are just too many pilot-ish aspects of the story for there to be any other explanation.
There are three basic categories of bad films. There are ones made by people with skill and no talent; ones made by people with talent and no skill; and the disaster made by folks who have neither talent nor skill. Writer/director Serge Rodunsky is one of those no-talent craftsmen who only repeat what they've seen other filmmakers do and anything new or different only slips into the mix by accident. T hat happens a couple of times in Jack of Hearts. For example, when Jack's corrupt boss throws him off the case and asks for his badge and gun, Jack is willing to just give up and forget all about the mystery. It's a neat, human moment where Jack is just a guy trying to get through the day and has had enough of it all. Unfortunately, that moment is like someone lit a match it a pitch black room. For a second you can see something better, then it dies out and you're left in blackness again.
This movie isn't terrible. Jack of Hearts is a below average melodrama with an above average cast. There are certainly worse things to watch than this.