HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE

REVIEWED BY BRETT WILLIS

Our rating: 2 out of 5

Because of: anti-religious content

Rated:

If you’re interested in a sometimes-gritty cop drama that’s actually a lame comedy, here’s the film for you. Joe Gavilan (Harrison Ford) and K.C. Calden (Josh Hartnett) are old/young detective partners in Hollywood.  Although their supervisor respects their work, an Internal Affairs investigator has a grudge against Joe and his investigative team works night and day trying to find something to pin on the pair. Joe is an excellent shot, K.C. a horrible one. Both men have distracting outside interests: Joe is a real estate agent (sometimes when questioning a witness, he hands him the wrong business card), and he has a lover who’s a psychic and who uses her powers to help them with a case. K.C. studies, practices and teaches Eastern meditation disciplines including Tantric Yoga [magic sex], and he’s pursuing a second career as an actor. 

Both men’s cell phones go off at the most inopportune times, including during a high-speed chase and during their interrogation by the I.A. squad. An execution-style shootout at a mostly-black nightclub claims all four members of the rap group that was performing there; only the group’s songwriter escapes.  Joe and K.C. get the case, and the plot is slightly convoluted but predictable as the trail of evidence leads them down paths that coincidentally interconnect with past events in their own lives.  When they finally catch up to the bad guys in this case, they’re able to lay old skeletons to rest also.

A big-name supporting cast, including personalities from the music industry, lends some credibility (or at least some interest) to the film. The film ends with a standard-issue very long chase scene including some creative car jumps and smashups.  And for the most part, the leads appear to be playing their parts as standard drama, even though the material is at times absurd.

There are several firearms deaths and one death from a fall, although those scenes are shot in a subdued manner with little blood-splatter. Both Joe and K.C. are involved with women; there are implied sex scenes with upper back nudity. There’s one clearly-heard f-word and possibly a couple of muted ones; about 35 uses of s*; a few s.o.b.’s; some abuses of God and Jesus; and other profanity as well as racial slurs.  There’s lots of sex talk, and a bit of homosexual humor (Lou Diamond Phillips is seen in drag; his character is a cop working as a decoy prostitute). It seems that all the major characters, hero and villain alike, have some kind of bad attitude.  And nearly all of this objectionable material is at some point played for laughs.

Although I knew there’d be some humor, I was expecting more of a serious cop drama.  I don’t care for this kind of mixed genre.  My bottom line: This is a weak, forgettable film for a summer release, and it will probably bomb.  It’s too dark to be really funny, and too stupid to be worth seeing as drama.