With Wesley Snipes currently mired in charges of major tax fraud, there's some irony in the arrival of Hard Luck, a straight-to-DVD release in which the star portrays a onetime gangster trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to go straight. Has method acting been taken to a whole other level?

The movie follows the saga of an anything-but-lucky ex-con named Lucky (Snipes). Released from prison, he attempts to get his life in order by settling down with a wife and child in New Orleans. That dream is literally swept away by Hurricane Katrina. Lucky then returns to his native New York, where he hustled on the mean streets years before, but bad luck strikes again. At a strip club with some former colleagues of his, Lucky finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time, inadvertently caught in the middle of a sting operation involving dirty cops and a briefcase containing $250,000. Chaos breaks out. Lucky grabs the briefcase and flees by kidnapping a Cuban stripper, Angela (Jackie Quinones), and commandeering her Ford Mustang.

But Hard Luck doesn't limit itself to Lucky and Angela's flight from the law. Director Mario Van Peebles -- who co-scripted the film with Larry Brand and also appears as a police detective -- attempts an intriguing, if not altogether successful, mashing of film genres. He tosses in a subplot about a pair of serial-killing lovebirds (James Hiroyuki Liao and a miscast Cybil Shepherd) who appear to have stumbled onto the wrong movie set. The interweaving of the two storylines feels contrived, and its ostensible payoff is a letdown.

Van Peebles knows how to gussy up pulpy material, and he keeps things pulsating with a cinematic bag of tricks that include flashbacks, split screens and slow motion. All that, and the filmmaker still finds time for some gratuitous lapdancing courtesy Quinones.

Van Peebles' stylistic perfume can't mask the fact that this is a mighty familiar smell, from the stereotypes passing as characters to the Tarantinoesque chatter about pop-culture ephemera.

Shown in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, Hard Luck boasts good picture quality with vivid colors and only a hint of grain in a few scenes. There are no noticeable defects such as edge enhancement or shimmering.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is much better than it has any right to be. With effective use of rear speakers and an unusually creative mix, the sound pumps up what is otherwise a ho-hum action flick. This reviewer's sole complaint about the audio, in fact, is an inconsistent volume level.

Audio is available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese (the French track is in Dolby Digital 2.0). Viewers can select subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean and Chinese.

Behind the Scenes of Hard Luck with Mario Van Peebles might give the movie more respect than it warrants, but this 18-minute, 26-second featurette is entertaining and reveals the director's infectious enthusiasm for moviemaking.

The DVD also contains more than 11 minutes of seven deleted scenes, all but two of which involve an eliminated subplot about a young couple (Kevin Thoms and Aubrey Dollar) who wind up in the killers' lair.

Rounding out the extras are previews for Lies & Alibis, Shadow Man, Second in Command, The Detonator, Baadassss!, The Marksman, Connor's War, Road House 2 and Little Man.

Hard Luck is not a bad picture, by any means -- and certainly deserved better than a straight-to-DVD -- but it alternates between run-of-the-mill and just plain clunky.