Brad Ellis is growing as a filmmaker in a narrative and visual sense. His “Halloween 2000” was a good-looking and stylish exercise; with last year’s “The Path of Fear,” he took his inventive use of lighting and camera angles and applied them to a compelling narrative. When I discovered Ellis’s next project was to be “Hustled 2,” I was not sure what to think. The original picture was a series of hit-and-miss gags stuck in an age-old cross-country odyssey. It benefited mostly from two supporting characters that each shared only a limited amount of screen time apiece. One was named Dickless, a movie theater manager with greasy hair and a screechy voice. The other was the Blind Racist, an eccentric bigot the lead characters taunt by pretending they’re black.

After seeing “Hustled 2,” I had a similar reaction -- two of the supporting characters had me laughing out loud, while the two leads displayed a shtick that grew tiresome after twenty minutes. It’s obvious “Hustled 2” was supposed to be a bigger, better sequel, with more tasteless humor and outrageous situations. The picture strains to offend, but instead of being edgy, it simply tries too hard to be funny. In some cases, less is more. Take the opening scene for example, which tries to earn laughs out of having an old woman curse. Haven’t we seen Betty White do that enough? If anything, I got distracted by how well the sequence was shot and edited. But I’ll get back to that.

The post-credits scene has some potential to be funny as pool hustlers Paul (Allen Gardner) and Rob (Mark Norris) go to a Jewish pool hall posing as Bible-beating Baptists. The scene has some laughs, but Gardner and Norris play the scene to such a silly degree it’s as if they don’t think what they are doing is funny. The performances are so overdone here it’s as if they’re begging us to laugh. The plot (or plots) this time involves a trip to Vegas, which gets interrupted by the addition of a new partner, and the attempt to hide from a duo of angry ex-girlfriends.

Other key characters this time around include: The Don (John Gardner), who wears a pimpin’ suit and apparently taught the boys everything they know about pool. I kept wondering why he hung out at a hole-in-the-wall pool joint with a miniature golf course if he was such hot stuff. Paul and Rob’s meeting with The Don leads them to his nephew, Toodles (Jake Warren), a once-smooth talker who turned into a spastic idiot after being kicked in the head by a goat. There are moments when Toodles is funny, especially when he is trying to hump chicks as he walks past them, but for the most part, a little of him goes a long way. He’s just another example of the movie’s attempt to choke laughs out of us.

The movie’s least successful characters are Angelina (Gaby Rodrigues) and Kirsten (Lauren Chapman), the psycho ex-girlfriends. When Paul and Rob first encounter them, they have a long speech about how they plan to torture and kill them. I think this scene is supposed to be funny because of the way the heroes show signs of fear, but more than anything, the scene is creepy. The feud with the ex-girlfriends leads up to a conclusion that is the creepiest, as talented musician Wil Deshazo prances around in a thong and grotesque facial hair, playing with dolls and combing his hair. This final sequence calls for a joke as desperate as an old lady saying “shit,” as it actually contains butch lesbians with deep voices.

The movie’s funniest characters come and go too quickly. The first is Dickless (Matt Weatherly, who also co-edited and co-produced the film), who has been seeking revenge since Paul broke his nose in the first movie. When Dickless spouts out his rage, it is done with such gleeful exuberance I wanted to see him get back at Paul and Rob. His speeches are the kind we could believe he has been writing for months, rehearsing them until the moment he finally gets to face his enemies again. The movie’s best character is no doubt Kip (a deadpan Mack Williams), an old acquaintance of the heroes who is so cheap he charges to use his toilet paper. After offering any service his home has to offer, he says, “Just to let you know what you’re getting into…” I would love to see a movie about this guy.

My biggest problem with “Hustled 2” is that I didn’t think Paul and Rob were very funny. Their best moments come in a series of flashbacks, one showing a false version of them being respectful to their girlfriends (the crowning moment of this sequence comes when they give a homeless man a submarine sandwich), the others showing how thoughtless they really were (the best being when they take their girlfriends flowers). Otherwise, I really didn’t find any reason to laugh at them. The entire picture consists of Paul and Rob beating up people, breaking things and having sex with every girl they encounter.

If anything, the re-occurring instant luck with chicks is nothing more than a way for the stars to fuel their egos. This certainly seems to be the case for Allen Gardner, who wrote the movie. I have met Gardner a number of times, and think he is a nice and talented guy, so I can only wonder why he would feel the need to show the audience how wonderful he thinks he is. The main reason could be because “Hustled 2” was written for a particular audience, most of them being the friends of his that are in the picture, and the people that know the people in the picture. The movie is a private party, and if you don’t know the people involved, you’re not going to have a very good time.

The most disturbing moment of “Hustled 2” comes early on, when Paul and Rob actually criticize their audience. Most of the people in the screening I attended did indeed laugh, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. It’s as if Gardner and Norris are saying this movie is the best they’re going to be able to do, and their audience members don’t have the brains to absorb anything deeper than this. I certainly hope this is not the case, because I think the two leads have a lot of potential, which is something they need to prove to their audience, especially as it continues to multiply. They are both intelligent enough to play something other than a couple of wisecracking horn dogs.

”Hustled 2” is too well made for its material. Ellis shoots every sequence with sheer professionalism, so I found myself distracted most of the time admiring how good it looks. I’m glad he got to take a break and cut loose a little bit, and I have no doubts the movie was fun and easy for him to make, but his talents call for a smarter script, even if it is a comedy. I have heard Gardner’s next script is a romantic comedy, and I think this has some serious potential. Ellis has tried a number of different genres, and I have no doubts he will bring an amazing amount of personal style to this type of film.

Now that “Hustled 2” has been made, I hope the Old School team can put it behind them and continue to grow as artists. They are all better than this, as I am sure they already know. Despite my problems with this film, my support and anticipation for their next project is still as large as ever.

Grade: C