|
Hollywood Homicide is the latest in an excruciating tradition of buddy cop movies put out by Hollywood, apparently under the impression that what Americans want more than anything from their entertainment is one plot endlessly refilmed with different stars. I don't think I'm overstating things to put forward that there are probably more buddy cop movies now in existence than there are actual partnered officers in every police precient in the country. If Hollywood is to be believed, there is also a druglord-to-drug ratio in America of about one kingpin per every gram of narcotic. Let's be charitable and ignore the mystery of how they're able to afford seaside mansions and bodyguards from the profit of a single dimebag of pot; the law of supply and demand still dictates that we should just leave them alone and let the free market thin their ranks out. An alternative solution is to find yourself two mismatched wiseacres who don't play by the rules and let them sort it out. Since this option allows for car chases and shootouts, it is invariably the one we get in our multiplexes every several months. I wonder if we've by now seen so many buddy cop action comedies, we aren't even able to step back and notice how incredibly fucking silly they are. I picture a screenwriter watching Matthau and Lemmon in The Odd Couple and thinking "Well, that wasn't bad, but the two leads really should have engaged in more pointless small arms fire while jumping out of exploding buildings in slow motion." With a genre this overdone, you really have to wonder: as a statistical probability alone, even a very small percentage of the 2,078,633 buddy cop action comedies already in existence are probably pretty good or even excellent. When I watch a trailer for a film like Homicide, I can't help but ask how it's adding a single new idea to an already glutted canon. If I was able to find even one new perspective, one new idea, I could have given myself some small justification for its existence. I was unable to do this. If Hollywood Homicide has a proton of originality tucked away in it, the film manages to hide it well out of sight from the trailer. There isn't anything I could pass along to you that you probably couldn't guess in a second if I put you on the spot. For instance: do you think our two mismatched partners will eventually grow to respect one another? Or be unable to work together, the case left unsolved? Will our heroes bust the case wide open in an unorthodox but effective manner? Or will they play things by the book, to limited results? Will the arty, flaky partner do a lot of arty, flaky things? Or will he realize he's on duty and paid to uphold the law, keeping his quirky antics to a minimum as a courtesy to his co-workers? It's a sad commentary on the demands we make from our entertainment, when simply being told a film genre allows even the most marginally intelligent filmgoer to have guessed the plot in its entirety without ever stepping foot in a theater. In fact, there were only two things I saw worth noting in the entire trailer. The first is that Harrison Ford clearly does not want to be in this movie in any capacity. I've seen actors phone it in before — this is the first time I've seen an actor so disenchanted with both his role and the film in general that he's evidently hung up the phone and resorted to semaphore. I don't mention this to be cruel, because I like Harrison Ford's body of work, but to point out the obvious: it's a one-minute trailer, for the love of Chris Tucker, that collects the best scenes in the film, and there isn't a single one where Ford isn't mumbling his lines like he's in a supermarket reading the ingredients off the back of a box of Triscuits. Having had to endure his trailer dialogue — "What?" "Move!" "Would you shut up?" "I'm a detective!" "I am not in the mood!" — I suspect the Triscuit reading would have been just as illuminating.
The only other notable thing was a scene towards the end of the trailer, where Josh Hartnett's character has commandeered a minivan filled with children for the purpose of giving chase to escaping villains. Hartnett weaves through traffic and sideswipes cars. One of the children, witnessing all of this, asks the entirely sensible question: "Are we going to die?" "Of course not," Hartnett's character responds. Then, upon further contemplation:"Well, yes. Eventually we will die. But that's a good thing! We can come back as something better!" This uplifting statement comes on the heels of a sudden swerve into the headlights of a quickly approaching sedan, followed by an enormous car-engulfing explosion. The children, who seem to have a firmer grasp on reality than the adult, react to Hartnett's hippy optimism with a mixture of dubiousness and blank terror. It had me laughing out loud at the dark preposterousness of the scene. Given the blandness of every other scene in the trailer, I wondered how much better Hollywood Homicide would have been if they'd abandoned the buddy cop premise entirely, and just formed the movie around Josh Hartnett's space cadet character schooling the children on his odd life view. At the very least, it would free up Harrison Ford's character to get to the bottom of that Eminem murder case, or at least drive over to his agent's house and beat him within an inch of his life. There's another movie I'd rather see: The Making of Hollywood Homicide, where we finally get an explanation for Ford's sleepwalking performance. Did his agent strongly advise him to star in a comedy/action movie, and only too late did he realize that he hitched himself to the entirely wrong vehicle? Did he have a five-picture contract with a studio, and this was the final film he was contractually obligated to appear in? Here finally would be a film where the ensuing gunfight makes total sense. RATING:
|
Hollywood
Homicide's trailer opens in the middle of a rap-off in a dark warehouse.
Men armed with automatic weapons suddenly burst into the room, and within
seconds the competing rappers and audience are riddled with bullets.
It is ironic that the dramatic ending I had been praying for while watching
Eminem's 8 Mile now shows up as the opening scene of a completely
different movie. I'm
hoping that when Homicide comes out on video, I'll able to rent
both films and splice them together. I envision the story of a rapper
named Bunny Rabbit, who overcomes prejudice and hardship while competing
in a big rap-off. Sadly, despite his rap skills he is kind of dim and
annoying — a trait shared by most of his co-stars — and tragedy
strikes when several of Rabbit's friends inevitably tire of his hamfisted
backstory and one facial expression, taking matters into their own hands.
Harrison Ford is sent to investigate, and then the film (in my version
a brisk eight minutes long) blissfully ends with the crime unsolved.
A
great deal of the blame here can be laid, I suspect, on the Casting
Director. Ford is called upon to play the joyless, crusty straight man
to Josh Hartnett's goofy space cadet. As seen in the trailer, Ford's
character is supposed to be a downright nasty piece of hard-boiled business
— curt, angry, world-weary, darkly sarcastic. A role like that
demands an intense actor like Russell Crowe or Jack Nicholson to fill
those shoes believably. Harrison Ford is a nice, goofy-smiled, charismatic
and, most importantly, likeable guy. He's built an entire career out
of being likeable. Watching him try to get comfortable with such an
ill-suited persona is like being in the front row for the opening night
of Tom Arnold's Hamlet.
