Search - Living to Die on DVD

NEEDS HELP IT DOES NOT RECEIVE.

rsoonsa | Lake Isabella, California | 01/13/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As a freshman director, and the picture's leading player, Wings Hauser requires more funding and experience than is available for this attempt at action noir, for he essays too many tangents and lacks that practical knowledge required to guide an uninspiring cast through its paces, although he must be admired for his ad libbing that rescues several scenes wherein a primary need is instead an increase of takes, reflected frequently by the star's parroting of questions put to him in his role as a private agent in Las Vegas. Even carefully planned editing and cutting would not give this work coherence, as there is little segueing between the many luxated scenes, and even though some of the dialogue is snappy, even witty, it is seldom so as written, due principally to Hauser's lack of directoral savvy, specially with Asher Brauner, who plays a dishonest city commissioner, and with the female lead, Darcy DeMoss, not a skilful actress in any event. As the film opens, Hauser's character, Nick Carpenter, is a Los Angeles Police Department detective, but following only one scene, he has suddenly become, sans transition or rationale, a private thug in Nevada, and subsequent activities of the cast often take place without discernible cause, other than to show a great deal of naked female flesh of indifferent quality, and a surfeit of subplots and secondary characters unfortunately escapes the cutting room floor; however, there is no question that the unexpected ending is most astonishing and raises an overall assessment of the production.

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