Hollywood Homicide Review
by Bob Bloom (bobbloom AT iquest DOT net)June 13th, 2003
HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE (2003) 1 1/2 stars out of 4. Starring Harrison Ford, Josh Hartnett, Lena Olin, Bruce Greenwood, Isaiah Washington, Lolita Davidovich, Keith David, Master P, Gladys Knight, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dwight Yoakam and Martin Landau. Music by Alex Wurman. Written by Robert Souza & Ron Shelton. Directed by Ron Shelton. Rated PG-13. Running time: Approx. 117 mins.
Like a chicken without its head, Hollywood Homicide stumbles blindly around the cinematic barnyard making lots of noise, but ultimately going nowhere.
The movie jumps around in plot and tone like a barefoot man trying to walk on a hot bed of coals.
Hollywood Homicide clumsily lurches between straight police melodrama, comedy, buddy-film stereotypes and police corruption clichés, doing justice to none.
The basic premise is clever: Two detectives, the veteran Joe Gavilan (Harrison Ford) and the younger K.C. Calden (Josh Hartnett), try to juggle their private lives and businesses while investigating a multiple homicide at a hip-hop club.
Joe is a real estate wheeler and dealer while K.C. teaches yoga and yearns to be an actor.
Director Ron Shelton, shares a screenwriting credit Robert Souza, but the movie plays as if each worked separately, unaware what the other was writing. They then tried to mesh their two scripts, which gave birth to this disjointed feature.
Hollywood Homicide wants to be an action comedy, but it is too heavy handed and slow. Even the requisite car chase — this one through Beverly Hills and Hollywood, ending at Grauman's Chinese — is unevenly paced. It lacks suspense, conveying more of a seen this-done that attitude.
As partners, Ford and Hartnett lack the chemistry necessary to make the pairing believable.
Both seem more concerned with straightening out their own lives than covering each other's backs.
Clichés abound from the hip-hop and gangsta atmosphere of the murders that open the film to the dirty cop working with the head villain to the dunder-headed Internal Affairs antagonist who has a personal vendetta against Gavilan.
Hollywood Homicide is a movie in pieces that no matter how hard you try, you can't seem to make whole.
Ford looks tired and disinterested, almost bored, while Hartnett just drifts along, content to play in Ford's superstar shadow.
Hollywood Homicide won't last long in theaters. At 117 minutes, it feels like three hours. Like Ford's Gavilan, it runs out of steam and begins huffing and puffing way before the closing credits.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, IN. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or at [email protected]. Other reviews by Bloom can be found at www.jconline.com by clicking on movies.
Bloom's reviews also appear on the Web at the Rottentomatoes Web site, www.rottentomatoes.com and at the Internet Movie Database:
http://www.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Bob+Bloom
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