Mario's Musings (Quarantine Edition): Hollywood Homicide
How do you follow up one review of a bad movie? How about another? How about one starring one of the all time greats? Still interested in these shenanigans? Good, because I’m talking about Harrison Ford in a buddy cop movie where he’s clearly only in it for the paycheck, and his performance is all the better for it. Plus, I’m a sucker for buddy cop movies.
Hollywood Homicide, released in 2003, stars Harrison Ford, Josh Hartnett, Bruce Greenwood, Dwight Yoakam, Isaiah Washington, Lena Olin, Martin Landau, and Keith David.
Let me start off by saying that I review this movie through a biased lens, because Harrison Ford is my childhood hero. I lived and breathed Indiana Jones and Han Solo, to the point where I’ve dressed as both during Halloween… as an adult. So when it comes to movies starring him, I love them unconditionally, including movies like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, K-19, and THIS travesty that’s so bad it’s hilarious.
Yes, this movie includes Harrison Ford riding a little girl’s bike.
But what made me actually pay to see this? Well, my cousin Diana wanted to see it because Josh Hartnett was popular at this point, and I figured, sure why not, I’d see something different. And boy, was it different. Ford plays the role of LAPD Detective Joe Gavalin, who moonlights as a real estate agent, partnering up with K.C. Calden, played by Josh Hartnett, a terrible shot who wants to break into acting while at the same time teaching yoga.
The main plot of the movie focuses on the murder of a rap group named H2OClick, but the movie pretty much revolves around Gavalin and Calden’s side jobs to supplement their income as LAPD Detectives. Most scenes show them handing out business cards and people staring at them like they have two heads, maybe because they should be doing their side jobs rather than doing their side hustles. There’s also a great bit where Hartnett keeps reciting lines from “A Streetcar Named Desire”, much to everyone’s chagrin.
All in all, Ford seriously doesn’t want to be there, so he’s playing grumpy old man Harrison Ford all movie, while Josh Hartnett somewhat tries play the role right since he’s working alongside Ford. Supposedly, these two didn’t get along on set so it definitely showed during one scene where Ford SNAPS on Hartnett for his driving and it definitely doesn’t feel like he’s acting there.
It’s Eric Idle from Monty Python!
I’m really not going to be able to convince you to watch this, and it was a miracle I managed to get my good friend Joe Gariffo to watch it when he crashed at my place during college. It’s a bad movie, but I love it because Harrison Ford is the star and he clearly doesn’t care. But hey, it has fun cameos from Gladys Knight, Master P, and Eric Idle!