Review: Hollywood Homicide
Hollywood Homicide will forever be billed as a new millennium Lethal Weapon, and Sony seems to be keen on that fact looking over the films recent television campaign. Not that being a Lethal Weapon clone is a bad thing, but would it totally kill the screenwriter to include something original?
Homicide as a film feels as though it is lost finding a voice to speak above and beyond that of other buddy comedies that have come and gone over the years. Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon, Rush Hour 2, Shanghai Knights, oh hell anything with Jackie Chan and some other guy can qualify for this distinction. The pairing of Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett provides some good onscreen chemistry, and plenty of laughs, but as the film progresses you absolutely loose sight of where it is going.
Joe Gavilan (Harrison Ford) is a detective by day and real estate agent by night who gets the call to investigate the shooting of an up and coming hip-hop group, H20 Klick, with his young partner K.C. Calden who moonlights as a Yoga instructor, when not solving murders. The majority of the movie is based on finding one witness who saw the shooters and may have some information on Sartain, the record label executive who may or may not have been involved in the shooting. Realistically the movie plays out as an extended episode of Law & Order with more humor and needless “romance” scenes.
The film seems merely content with just cracking an extreme line of jokes about certain aspects of Hollywood culture while straying away from anything relating to the plot. In fact, if it wasn’t for the trailer and the initial killing in the beginning you couldn’t even assume there was a script for this movie. Granted, the jokes almost always hit their mark and are funny, but then the audience is thrown a curve ball in the form of Gavilan being investigated by Internal Affairs because the head honcho over there has an axe to grind. Then we learn about a certain ex-cop who killed his partner, conveniently Calden’s father, who is working for Sartain’s record company. It’s leaps like this that really sheds light on the fact that actors were chosen first and the script was worried about later.
Not all is bad in Hollywood though. There is a very cool car chase scene towards the end of the film with an Escalade and a Saleen Mustang (which is horrifying to watch as it gets smashed) and a particularly funny foot pursuit over a series of bridges also adds to the fun. Also, as stated before the jokes do manage to hit their mark with surprising accuracy and you do have fun watching the film, but as a whole you are left to wonder what in the hell is going on before you are able to understand anything.
Hollywood Homicide is your standard summer fare, and a semi-worthy diversion to the norm, but it isn’t something that couldn’t wait till DVD or even cable to spend your money on to rent or view. The relationship between the two characters works well enough that the film just screams “sequel” but hopefully they won’t forget to write a script next time.
