Divisão de Homicídios

This movie is a lot of fun. Everyone seems to be doggin' this movie, but most negative critiques I've read sound like the person expected "Hollywood Homicide" to be bad. The movie has failings to be sure, but I laughed out loud many times and smiled throughout the whole film. All I wanted was to have a good time, and I did.

Taking another chance on L.A, on the streets and more specifically on the police, as in "Dark Blue", Ron Shelton, a man of multiple themes, brings a new project to the table, which is called "Hollywood Homicide". The difference between this one and the latter one is that this is Hollywood, precisely. And when the beginning credits roll, and we're shown fifty "Hollywood" signs; it's obvious that they want us to realize that. Why would it be?

The story about Ron Shelton meeting Robert Souza in the set of "Dark Blue" and them both getting together to write the script of "Hollywood Homicide", because Souza had been a cop before…Interesting. However, in the same vein, "Dark Blue" is the portrait of a cruel reality; "Hollywood Homicide" is the satire of a shallow but real reality in the end. It's Hollywood, and it was a good premise to put some fun in the crime scenes, probably to make it "more dramatic than anything seen in Hollywood".

The other elements the plot offers go from action to crime, or vice versa. They created the murderer of a rap band, so they could mess a little bit with the music business, too. There we see the producers, the groups, the "showbiz"…It's even related with theater and movies, because one of the main characters wants to be an actor; and in a decent comedic way, he's thinking about acting each time he's doing something; and he probably isn't that good.

I'm talking about K.C Calden; Josh Hartnett's character. He gives classes of movements to find the inner self. There, a lot of hot women assist and kiss him when they leave. In one scene, his partner tells him that he did for sex. "At first it was for sex, now it has become something spiritual", K.C answers, and at night, a hot woman is waiting for him in the "Jacuzzi". "How long has it been since the last time you got laid", K.C asks his partner. "It's not your business", the partner says. Then, he lets a man working as a prostitute into his car. When they discuss that, he says: "It was nothing, it was a man, a cop; a cop man".

This partner is Joe Gavilan, a pro in the police business played by a pro in the acting business. As he did with Kurt Russell in "Dark Blue", Shelton brings Harrison Ford back to the top of his game. With his character, based on writer Robert Souzas's own life, he has the best lines and he has a lot of fun. Antoine Sartain (Isaiah Washington) should be afraid of him; a man that has had sex, with Ruby (an over the top Lena Olin) and makes real estate business with producer Jerry Duran (the great Martin Landau) and Julius Armas (a correct Master P) while he's driving a car high speed. When he is told the composer of the rap group is still alive, he replies: "Somebody actually writes that s***?". He has had bad times, Bennie Macko (Bruce Greenwood) wants to get him, and in the best scene of the movie, he and K.C get interrogated. This scene is managed with camera changes between the two interrogating rooms, where in Joe's, his cell is always ringing; and in K.C's, he is "centering" himself spiritually. Joe's interrogator can't do anything, while K.C's interrogator (a woman) asks him to help her relax.

That scene stole the only laughs from me during the entire film. Keith David was also having fun in his Leo role, reprising some of the comic elements he gave to Lester Wallace in "Barbershop". More importantly, and if you were wondering, Shelton directs his actors perfectly, making a stupendous balance between the pro and the amateur, the old and the young; Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett. Their chemistry is perfect, and one of the few reasons to watch the movie. In the end, their characters are nothing else but cops, in a film that leaves a lot of plot situations unresolved, is a bit long, not funny enough, but different from the gross humor that everyone finds easy to put on paper.

I've always been a fan of Harrison Ford and odds are I always will be, regardless of what comes out of his personal life now. Considering how Hollywood can screw a man up, Harrison still ranks as one of the few to have successfully held his head together. That and I usually find something entertaining his films. It's hard not to be entertained by him in the old Star Wars films, where he was hilarious as Han Solo, or to root/feel for him in the Indiana Jones trilogy and films like "Blade Runner", "Witness", the Jack Ryan films, "The Fugitive" and "Air Force One".

Thing is, "Witness" marked the turning point of Harrison's career in which he would mature into the modern day quiet, reluctant hero. Understandably, after playing this role again and again for about 20 years Ford would naturally want to go back to playing things a little funnier than he had previously been allowed. It's a bit of a shame that he picked such a weak script for a return to comedy. All in all, it's just an excuse to let Harrison reprise his Han Solo persona as an older man. But in the opinions of some, his age dried him out, preventing him from being as funny as he used to be.

This one tries very hard to be both apart OF the mismatched buddy cop genre AND to make fun of it. As a result, it never quite realizes it's potentially funny premise or even serve as usual time filler.

Ford plays Joe Gavilan, a cop working real estate on the side and Josh Hartnett is his younger partner KC Calden, who works a yoga class on the side, sleeps with his customers and is also an aspiring actor. They get assigned to solve the murder of an up and coming rap group and are repeatedly dogged by Bruce Greenwood as Ford's nemesis. The cliche of Josh's dad being a cop who got killed by way of his partner could have been left on the cutting room floor.

Ford and Josh do the young cop/old cop bit as well as anyone else, but Ford deserves a better than this, and after "Black Hawk Down" Josh should be more picky about his vehicles. The only real comic highlight is when they're being interrogated and are either mouthing off or playing quiet. This is the only gem in an otherwise dull film.

Here's hoping they both make better decisions in the future.

HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE (2003) ** Harrison Ford, Josh Hartnett, Lena Olin, Bruce Greenwood, Isaiah Washington, Keith David, Dwight Yoakam, Lolita Davidovich, Martin Landau, Master P, Lou Diamond Phillips, Gladys Knight, Smokey Robinson, Kurupt, Dre, (Cameo: Eric Idle; Robert Wagner as himself). By-the-numbers cop/buddy flick with Ford and Hartnett as gruff and flaky (respectively) LAPD detectives on the case of a rap group assassination while attempting to juggle their moonlighting gigs as real estate broker and wanna be actor (respectively) with a more-miss-than-hit attempt in the laughs department sadly by the out-of-touch script by director Ron Shelton (who acquits himself however in the action sequences including a smash bang-up thrilling car chase along Hollywood Boulevard) and Robert Souza that may have worked 20 years ago with its punchy takes at how LA is a town of many colorful characters on the make at something other than their boring careers (in this case police work). Although it is nice to see Ford's natural humor break through his bristling scowly demeanor Hartnett is miscast and clearly has no knack for comedy; that's the real joke.

Anyone who has seen this movie and commented on it as a serious action film should be shot.

From the very start it is fairly obvious it crosses the cheese line into a parody. From the totally pointless/unrelated cheesy opening scene of HF on a shooting range, the lake chase scene, the whole buddy buddy chemistry (or total deliberate lack thereof) to the non stop annoying phone ringing or maybe the complete lack of an interesting plot? Some of these should have given away to most people the real intentions of this film.

The 'love' scene with Harrison Ford should be the last clue to anyone blind enough, that this is really not to be taken seriously and can be considered made specially for Mystery Science Theatre.

The film is called 'Hollywood Homicide', I believe, so titled as to ruffle some Hollywood feathers with the notion that Hollywood has been killed by the never ending rain of terrible buddy cop movies. The real joke is that some suit somewhere probably OK'd this as a real action movie.

In fact, the funniest thing is that some people took it seriously and enjoyed it as a serious action movie.

The chases are deliberately over the top lame (I mean really, really bad), the dialogue is so silly and pointless it just makes you laugh, the character development is totally non-existant, the cliches flow non-stop, the whole side plot of internal affairs is placed there because it's in every buddy cop movie, etc, etc. How anyone took this movie as a serious action film is beyond me.

I give it 6/10 because, it's hilarious in places (in a MST kind of way), I agree with their intentions (THE COP FILMS MUST END!!!). Just please, don't take it anything more than a parody.