Film.com's FREE movie of the week is "Love the Hard Way." Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and Charlotte Ayanna star in this drama about a thief who falls for a curious, beautiful young woman. As their intimacy grows, a slick cop (Pam Greer) is closing in.
Jerry Lundegaard is a car salesman in Minneapolis who has gotten himself into debt and is so desperate for money that he hires two thugs to kidnap his own wife. Jerry will collect the ransom from her wealthy father, paying the thugs a small portion and keeping the rest to satisfy his debts. The scheme collapses when the thugs shoot a state trooper and two innocent bystanders in rural Minnesota, drawing local Police Chief Marge Gunderson into her first homicide investigation. At first unaware that the homicides are connected to a Minneapolis kidnapping, Chief Gunderson draws closer to Jerry Lundegaard as his situation further unravels.