Customer Reviews

Hard Choices [VHS]

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This very small, low-budget crime drama, made on a shoestring in 1984 and (barely) released two years later, came out before the upsurge of independent cinema in the U.S. It's far from perfect: the low budget shows in some of the roughness in the editing and photography; the plot tends to meander, particularly in the middle section; some of the events and dialogue have a slight nonsequitur quality; the subsequent career of the director, Rick King, has been undistinguished. Yet the cumulative power of "Hard Choices" is impressive, largely because it is superbly acted down to the smallest bit part. Some of the supporting actors in this film--John Sayles, Spalding Gray, Martin Donovan, the late J.T. Walsh--went on to bigger and better things, deservedly so. It is a disappointment bordering on tragedy, however, that the leads in this film vanished into obscurity--doe-eyed Margaret Klenck, an offbeat and sexy actress more European than American in style, and rawboned, likable Gary McCleery, who splits the difference between Matthew Broderick and Richard Thomas. Had this movie been made today, in the heyday of indie films, these two would have become household names on the basis of their performances here.