Lucky (Adu) struggles to make ends meet by hawking knockoff goods in midtown Manhattan. Then an ex-girlfriend dumps a kid on him; what’s a hustler to do? Director Sean Baker tries to do for those Herald Square sweet-talkers selling bootleg Prada what Ramin Bahrani did for coffee-cart jockeys in Man Push Cart, i.e., make these invisible New Yorkers seem hangdog heroic with every shaky handheld-camera shot. There’s one crucial lesson that Baker hasn’t absorbed, however: Don’t get too caught up in plotting, especially when it involves a man warming to an unwanted child.—Andrew Schenker
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