The SmarK DVD Rant For Hollywood Homicide

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The SmarK DVD Rant for Hollywood Homicide

I got a chance to pick this one up for cheap on the weekend, and I’d heard good things about it from Roger Ebert, so I figured it was worth a look. However, upon noting the purchase on my blog (http://scottkeith.blogspot.com), I got the following outraged e-mail from Derek Burgan, before I even had a chance to watch the movie:

you picked up Hollywood Homicide?! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?!

Well, given a challenge like THAT, how could I not review it?

The Film

The trailer for this is sadly misleading. Most of the footage shown is from the last 15 minutes of the movie, leading you to believe that it’s a Maniac Cop Movie, when in actuality it’s a combination police procedural and Wunza Movie.

What’s a Wunza movie? A sub-genre of the cop movie, with mismatched partners. In this case, wunza real-estate agent, and wunza failed actor. This would differ from the Maniac Cop Movie, which features an out-of-control loose cannon cop who plays by his own rules and saddled with a partner he doesn’t want, and gets yelled at by the gruff sergeant, who really loves him deep down. Harrison Ford just isn’t capable of being out-of-control. He’s too lovable.

Anyway, the trailer for the movie leads you to believe that this is a manic, laugh-a-minute action-comedy with lots of explosions, when in fact it’s not. It’s actually quite a sedate, laid-back look at the investigation of a murder, with a final act that feels like it was attached with an arc welder by the studio.

At a club owned by a multimillionaire mogul, two punks gun down members of an up-and-coming rap group, for reasons unknown. There’s only one witness, and he escaped after pissing his pants in the corner (you take evidence where you can find it). So the two best detectives (available on short notice) are called in to lead the investigation, in the form of Joe Gavilan (Harrison Ford playing his usual incredulous and yet world-weary character) and rookie KC Calden (Josh Hartnett). Joe is an honest cop who went to one too many real estate seminars on the weekend and has now worked his way up to trying to find a buyer for a monstrosity in Beverly Hills, while KC thinks he’d rather go into acting, although his terrible reading of Streetcar Named Desire wouldn’t convince you of that. This leads to a series of funny running gags with Joe trying to broker a deal between the club owner and a formerly-famous movie producer, even taking calls in mid-chase.

The villain is Antoine Sartaine, seemingly based on a combination of Puff Daddy and Master P (Master P himself plays the club owner in a cute bit of casting), as the owner of the record label, seemingly saddened by the death of his rising act, but obviously up to something else, as his execution of the original gunmen early in the movie would indicate. Call it a hunch. Dwight Yoakum also pops up as Sartaine’s right-hand man, playing the usual scumbag he’s been doing for the past few years.

The movie moves at a pleasant pace, with Joe getting dogged by an Internal Affairs agent who has a grudge because of more reasons than professional ones, and Martin Landau again stealing the show as the producer who is looking to sell his house for not a penny under 5.8 million?

I enjoyed this one from start to finish, as the writer has a real flair for dialogue, and there’s some hilarious individual scenes (KC fruitlessly chasing a witness on a paddle-boat, a handcuffed perp managing to steal a gun and the audience playing “count the bullets” along with the detectives) and equally funny running gags (the real estate deal, Joe’s “psychic” girlfriend, KC’s womanizing and terrible aim), making this one a completely worthwhile rental for someone looking for a light-hearted twist on the usual violent buddy movie. A couple of the plot points were tied up a little TOO neatly at the end, but tight plotting isn’t the reason people watch goofy cop movies anyway. It’s not quite as good as The Hard Way as far as hard-boiled-detective & cop/actor movies go, but not many are.

You probably missed it in the theater, but it’s worth a look on DVD.

The Video

A nice 2.40:1 anamorphic transfer from Columbia, as colors are good and there’s no compression problems that I can see. It’s not quite up to Superbit levels, and I found things a bit soft at times, but overall this is fine and does the job. There’s also a pan-and-scam version on the same disc, and I’m glad Columbia at least offers the choice on the disc instead of putting it out in two versions with “full screen” in teeny tiny letters on the spine like Universal.

The Audio

Dolby Digital 5.1, and again it’s a good one. Bullets sound crisp and ricochet through the surrounds, dialogue is clear and loud in the center channel, and the music kicks up through the stereo speakers in various places. A very enjoyable action-movie mix.

The Extras

Well, you get a director’s commentary with Ron Shelton, and a bunch of Columbia trailers, and that’s it. Not exactly an A-list release, I guess.

The Ratings:

The Film: ***1/2
The Video: ****
The Audio: ****
The Extras: *1/2