| Advertised as both a comedy and a thriller (depending on which week you caught its trailer), Hollywood Homicide is a buddy-cop picture looking for a punch line and a plot. Scattered and fractured, the entire film is hung on the thin chemistry between stars Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett. Needless to say, the sparks never quite fly – nor do the laughs.
Pulling a slipshod story from the mass of headlines about Los Angeles Police Department’s involvement in the rap industry – particularly in the deaths of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. – Hollywood Homicide has its mismatched team of detectives investigating a gang-style murder at an L.A. nightclub.
When a group of rappers is gunned down in cold blood, seasoned detective Joe Galivan (Ford) and his younger counterpart K.C. (Hartnett) are dispatched to investigate and find the killer. The trail soon leads to a high-profile record label exec (a more articulate, docile take on Suge Knight played by the polished Isaiah Washington). The final kicker is that said exec doesn’t take kindly to his talent getting early releases from their contracts.
Unfortunately, director Ron Shelton (whose most notable writing/directing credit is for Bull Durham) doesn’t know where to take this story. Without investing much effort or originality in the action/suspense angle (think stale car chases and a tiny suspect pool), he focuses too much of his attention on the supposedly complicated personal lives of his detectives.
Sadly, the interpersonal struggles of our two heroes never seem as pressing or interesting as they should. Then, when it turns out that Joe and K.C. are investigating misconduct by the same cop who was responsible for the death of K.C.’s dad, also a cop, the central murder story is left on the back-burner.
Amid the swirl of Hollywood anecdotes and cameos (Eric Idle and Robert Wagner are among the stars who appear, briefly, as themselves), it seems that Shelton had loftier goals for Hollywood Homicide. Whether attempting satire or a darker, more insightful take on the idiosyncrasies of the L.A. film industry, Shelton never taps into these ideas. Neither as amusing as Get Shorty or as insightful as L.A. Confidential, the film ultimately comes off looking mostly like a poor man’s Showtime.
Finally, Shelton inadvertently proves one of the most well-known truths about Tinseltown: window-dressing is too often mistaken for originality. |
Copyright ©2003 FFWD. All rights reserved.