Mark Reviews Movies: HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE

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Review by Mark Dujsik

Here’s yet another buddy comedy/action flick where two cops with some sort of barrier join forces and save the day. This time around, Harrison Ford plays the veteran cop, and Josh Hartnett plays his partner. With thirty-six years between the two actors, it’s fairly obvious we’ve got a generational gap at play for laughs here. Ford plays the cop with old-fashioned, conservative values; Hartnett plays the kid who is thinking he’d rather be an actor. They’re not so different, though; both of them have outside jobs. Ford works on the side (and on duty) as a real estate agent, and Hartnett’s got a nice little cash cow teaching beautiful women yoga. Ford has his women too, though, namely Lena Olin. So, I guess he can’t complain. They’re both really popular on top of it, especially Ford. Just watch how many times his cell phone rings during the course of Hollywood Homicide. It becomes a running gag and gimmick—an obnoxious one on both fronts. The cell phone becomes the expository character in the movie. It’s more important to the story and may have more screentime than Hartnett.

Ford plays Joe Gavilan, who juggles his work as an officer and a realtor with little success. Internal Affairs is looking into his life and his co-mingling of funds, which wouldn’t usually be of too much concern for anyone else, but the agent in charge Macko (Bruce Greenwood) has it out for him and, by association, Hartnett’s K.C. Calden. Anyway, the movie opens at a club in L.A. where a popular new rap group is about to give their final performance. Two men sneak guns into the club and, after the performance, slip backstage and kill them. Gavilan and Calden are called in to investigate. The inspection uncovers very little, but soon after, two more bodies are discovered in a burnt car. It’s the two shooters. Seems that someone killed them after they killed the rappers. And it turns out that someone is Sartain (Isaiah Washington), the president of the group’s record label who wants to send a message to anyone who might think they can go out on their own.

The plot is unimportant, because it’s simply filler. Replace any one of these specific elements with something else, and you’d essentially have the same thing. If this is a comedy, though, you could have fooled me. Director Ron Shelton takes so much of this too seriously. He and fellow screenwriter Robert Souza (a former officer of the L.A.P.D.) are venturing into routine territory and make every effort to stick to the standard. The moments they take a risk, it usually works. Note a chase that has Hartnett running across a bridge and back to catch a witness fleeing in a paddle boat. It’s perfectly absurd and, yes, funny. Pay attention to a few choice cameos by Eric Idle, as a celebrity arrested for soliciting favors, Robert Wagner, as Robert Wagner receiving a star outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and Lou Diamond Phillips, as an undercover cop in drag to bust a prostitution ring. This is funny stuff, but it’s spread out to far and in-between the straightforward formula. It’s not until a final chase that all of these elements come together and create a noteworthy comic spectacle that simultaneously follows and mocks formulaic conventions.

The thing that makes these movies work is the chemistry between the lead duo. There’s not much going on in this case. Hartnett is an actor I’ve had to warm up to, but he’s starting to show his stuff. I still doubt he could carry an entire movie on his shoulders (and I’m not sure he ever could), but he’s stands out in these quiet, brooding roles. He’s nicely mellow and laid back for the most part, and a few of his later moments, such as the discovery of his father’s killer and a late night shooting range scene, are some his best work. Ford, on the other hand, isn’t even close to his best. There’s something missing from his performance—mainly, a level of interest. Ford can almost always be counted on to bring some life to something with a seemingly ageless youthfulness, but the few occasions it shows through hardly make up for the rest of it. His best moment comes in the midst of the final chase scene, when, failing to commandeer a car, he takes a little girl’s bike and snarls at her objection. With the main pair missing a much-needed energy, it allows someone like Bruce Greenwood to stand out. Someone needs to get him some better work—and soon.

I guess you can’t blame Ford for being bored during most of this, but it’s too bad the fact is so painfully apparent throughout the movie. Hollywood Homicide is proof, once again, that even the most likable stars can be doomed by mediocre material… and having to wear sunglasses and eat a donut during a love scene. Although, we do get to see an absolutely terrible production of a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire, so maybe it’s not all that bad.

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