Hard Times

Times aren't easy in depression-era New Orleans - the setting for director Walter Hill's first feature, "Hard Times" (1975). Charles Bronson plays a down-on-his-luck boxer trying to make ends meet with the help of James Coburn's questionable booker. Though an affair with a beautiful woman, played by Jill Ireland, Bronson's real-life wife, seems promising, it's back to brawling for Bronson, leading to a heart-pounding climax that doesn't pull any punches.