Nevermind, Rewind Movie Of The Week

This movie had so much promise.  Of course, most of that promise was based on the cover alone, but seriously!  Look at that shit!  The premise is fairly simple...after the apocalypse, the gritty hard up survivors making it in the wasteland start participating in a new version of pool where losing means losing a finger.  Then of course the titular loner character comes in and shakes things up by being really good at pool.  Okay, I knew this was going to be stupid, but I still thought it had the chance to be stupid good.  Unfortunately it's the worse kind of bad as far as shitty movies go which means it's extremely BORING.

If I hadn't read the back description, I wouldn't know what the fuck is happening at all because the apocalypse is never explained.  The film just starts rather abruptly without credits and shows the main character, Harry (played by quasi-popular Australian actor Steve Bisley from MAD MAX and other stuff), shuffling down a train track with a chihuahua in a papoose.  Eventually credits began rolling and the viewer is treated to the sight of this guy walking through a distillery.

What sort of Godless hell is this place of the future?

I guess this is the part where we assume bombs have been dropped here before because like seriously, where are all like the shopping malls?  At some point Harry walks by a store front that has, holy shit!  Graffiti!  Clearly, lawlessness and anarchy are rampant!  The graffiti, which I guess stands as the opening text or narration that most post-apocalyptic movies have, is actually just a tag that reads "George Orwell".  You know, because remember that book he wrote about the future?  It's about this point that the film starts to lose me.  Harry eventually walks into an abandoned bar of some kind where he runs into old friends.  Words are exchanged, but I can't understand most of them through they're thick Aussie accents.  What does become understandable is that Harry is hugging the bar owner a lot and the bar owner at some point becomes agitated and asks Harry to show him his fingers.  Harry obliges and very slowly reveals each finger on each hand one by one.  He even does a little fake out with his last pinkie.  That Harry, such a card!

"Off with his tip!"

After talking with his mates for a bit, Harry decides to cross the street to a dingy pool hall and watch some shady guys play a few rounds.  This is when it looks interesting, for a second anyway.  One of the guys brings out a device which is placed on the pool table.  It's the finger cutting thing promised in the plot line!  Yes!  Action!  The losing player places his finger in the device and BAM!  It's cut off!  Well, it's not that cool really.  The camera pans away from the device so the finger cutting is not actually shown.  Boo!  The loser of said finger then wraps that shit up and keeps on playing.  Harry schemes his way into the action at some point and the game is on!  Except here's the problem...even in the post-apocalypse, watching two dudes play pool, is still watching two dudes play pool.  It's fucking boring!  After what seems like an hour, the game is finished, Harry is the winner, collects his finger blood money and no one loses a pinkie.  Yeah.  BORING.  Unless you're really into dreads and cue balls.  I say, pass on HARD KNUCKLE.  Then again, if you are really into those things, you are probably a fairly boring individual and in that instance, this movie has the perfect plot holes and pacing for you.