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1. HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE by Tom McCurrie
Buddy Cop movies are like greeting cards -- there's one for every occasion. There've been Buddy Cops with dinosaurs (THEODORE REX), Buddy Cops with aliens (ALIEN NATION) and even Buddy Cops with humans (LETHAL WEAPON). HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE goes the human route, but this is one greeting card that should be Returned to Sender.
(Warning: Spoilers Ahead!)
Written by Robert Souza and Ron Shelton, HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE appears to have been dashed together after a long night of binge-drinking. Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett play two cops investigating the murder of a rap group. I use the term "investigating" loosely, since this dynamic duo spend most of their time selling homes or angling for auditions. This goes on (and on and on) till the climax when the villain literally drives into their laps and he's taken down.
Now I applaud putting character into Buddy Cop flicks -- Lord knows they need it. And Ford and Hartnett are endearing as a downwardly-mobile hustler and new-age artiste. But HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE has so much character there's little room for anything else, including action, mystery or thrills. Two-thirds of the story is spent setting up our leads, pushing the far more interesting murder hunt into the background.
As written, Ford and Hartnett are more concerned with real estate and acting gigs then they are with catching a killer. If your heroes don't care about nabbing the bad guy (the main goal of any Buddy Cop flick), why should the audience? This lack of purpose stalls the narrative, causing it to drift. Worse still, we see who the killer is from the beginning. So we have to wait an eternity for our lackadaisical leads to figure out what we already know. The pace slows to a crawl -- I've seen tectonic plates move faster.
And when these cops do investigate, the logic of the investigation makes no sense. Ford and Hartnett discover the killers of the rap group have themselves been killed. So why are they still looking for the murder witness (Kurupt)? What can he tell them that the bodies of the assassins can't? The only people Kurupt witnessed have been greased. Logic takes a further holiday when Kurupt's mother, Gladys Knight, tells the cops record producer Isaiah Washington is the killer. Though there's no hard evidence to back her up, Ford and Hartnett immediately start hunting for Washington! Of course, they get nowhere in the search and use a psychic to find their man (oh, pa-leeze!). Bad guy Washington doesn't help matters. He's smart enough to avoid a police stakeout at his house, but insists on driving around Beverly Hills in broad daylight. Duh!
But of all the failings HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE has, the most criminal is the lack of action. This is a Buddy Cop no-no. Except for a poorly staged ambush and a deadly dull wading (yes, I said wading) pursuit in the Venice canals, there's no significant Bang, Bang, Boom, Boom till the Third Act. Admittedly, the final car/bike/foot chase is a nifty one, but it's too little, too late to save the pic from a bad case of the snores. (The now 60 year-old Ford is getting too old for the genre as well. He looked on the verge of a coronary the whole chase. Not exactly a good way to suspend your disbelief.)
I used to think Buddy Cop movies would be around forever. But if they keep making them like HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE, the Endangered Species List isn't far behind.
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to gillis662000@yahoo.com.
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked as a development executive and a story analyst. He is currently a screenwriter living in Los Angeles.
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