Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17752 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-01-26
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 111 minutes

Amazon.com
Harrison Ford lends his solid, perpetually disgruntled presence to Hollywood Homicide, an action comedy in which he's paired with the squinty eyes and peaches-and-cream complexion of Josh Hartnett (Black Hawk Down). Radical French film-maker Jean-Luc Godard would appreciate this complete deconstruction of the buddy-cop flick genre; basic cinematic elements (mismatched partners, a hard-ass superior riding them, arguments about who's going to drive, arguments about intuition vs. diligent detective work, the bad cop who killed Hartnett's father, etc.) have been scrambled and slapped together with no concern for coherence, making clear their innately artificial nature. Sex scenes and car chases come out of nowhere and disappear without consequence, providing arbitrary visual stimulus. During shoot-outs, it's impossible to tell who got killed or why, underscoring a basic doubt about the purpose of making movies like Hollywood Homicide. It's rare for a mainstream movie to be so daringly (if perhaps accidentally) avant-garde. --Bret Fetzer

DVD Description
From Oscar-nominated Ron Shelton (Best Writing, Original Screenplay, Bull Durham, 1989) this hot action comedy is guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat...and in stitches. Starring Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett, Hollywood Homicide redefines the buddy-cop genre. In Hollywood, no one is who they really want to be. Veteran police detective Joe Gavilan (Ford) and his rookie partner K.C. Halden (Hartnett) are no exception. Between Joe's struggling real estate business and K.C.'s fledgling acting career and yoga instruction, they've got a major murder case to solve. With both Internal Affairs and their main suspect on their tails, Joe and K.C. have to infiltrate the dangerous world of the hip-hop recording industry. Juggling two careers proves to be a comical adventure, with Joe and K.C. desperate to stay alive long enough to catch their big break.

Amazon.com
Harrison Ford lends his solid, perpetually disgruntled presence to Hollywood Homicide, an action comedy in which he's paired with the squinty eyes and peaches-and-cream complexion of Josh Hartnett (Black Hawk Down, O). Radical French film-maker Jean-Luc Godard would appreciate this complete deconstruction of the buddy-cop flick genre; basic cinematic elements (mismatched partners, a hard-ass superior riding them, arguments about who's going to drive, arguments about intuition vs. diligent detective work, the bad cop who killed Hartnett's father, etc.) have been scrambled and slapped together with no concern for coherence, making clear their innately artificial nature. Sex scenes and car chases come out of nowhere and disappear without consequence, providing arbitrary visual stimulus. During shoot-outs, it's impossible to tell who got killed or why, underscoring a basic doubt about the purpose of making movies like Hollywood Homicide. It's rare for a mainstream movie to be so daringly (if perhaps accidentally) avant-garde. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

Bland, but with an easy charm...
Hollywood Homicide is a very formulaic buddy cop movie, with an over complicated plot, only a few laughs, and coasting leads.

But, honestly, I enjoyed it far more than I probably should have. The opening is really quite bad, with dodgy "modern yoof" dialogue, and a suedo rap/hip hop scene. It takes a while for the storlyline to get going, and even then it's a confusing miss mash of scenes that don't seem to join together, and ends up with our two cops chasing after a villain we never even knew how they worked out it was him!

Still, with a side stories regarding secondary careers (Ford's cop is also a real estate agent, while Hartnett also plays a wannabe actor - oh the irony!) that are mildly amusing, they do tend to get in the way of the main storyline, and extend the running time longer than it should.

But it wasn't all bad. There were some amusing scenes - the interview room scene was funny, and a bizarre chase across, around and through a river also picks up a slightly dragging film.

Yet it is good to stick around, because come the final half hour, there is a pretty decent, action fuelled finale, involving a car chase and fight that, surprisingly, works around Ford's and Hartnett's easy, laid back relationship. The "That's it - I'll drive!" scene is an example of that.

It's not brilliant, it's far from perfect, but it will charm viewers. Remember, make a mine a cheeseburger...

Extras wise, there are a bunch of trailers and bios, and three featurettes. The making of is the most interesting, but the otehr two are dull. Especially LAPD Stories, which really doesn't have much to do with the film in the first place.

A great blend of action with comedy!
To me, Hollywood Homicide seems to satisfy most tastes and genres. It is an action, thriller, crime, comedy and romance. Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett work very well together in this film with Ford playing the veteran and Hartnett playing the rookie, which I suppose is the same in real life. In my own personal opinion, Harrison Ford has been hiding away for a while but he has come back with a great film

There are several hilarious scenes in this film, my favourite being when Galvin (Harrison Ford) and Calden (Josh Hartnett) are 'interviewed' by the internal affairs department. I laughed a LOT at that scence because of the way that the pair were not taking it seriously at all.

Hollywood Homicide also shows the audience all the trademarks of Los Angeles. This includes Hollywood (seen as the film is called Hollywood Homicide, this is pretty obvious), Venice, Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. When I saw the scene in Venice and Rodeo Drive, I could see that it had not been manipulated or changed in any way, meaning that the scenery had not changed from real life. When I was in LA, the first thing I thought when I went to Venice was, 'this is where the chase was!'. If you watch the film or have seen it already, and have been to LA, you'll know exactly what i'm talking about.

Hollywood Homicide is also a genuine film, and is not trying to make anybody the hero of the film. Neither does it focus on one genre, as I said earlier, the film contains many different genres. I would generally recommend this film to anyone.

Amateur Hour
Somewhere in the deepest excesses of the Hollywood psyche, there must dwell a malevolent beast that oversees the construction and distribution of utter drivel. Alternatively, there must be a hitherto unknown film school that tells you exactly how not to make a formulaic buddy cop action comedy. If either is true, the said malevolent beast was certainly hosting class on the day Hollywood Homicide ever saw daylight.

This is – by Hollywood’s decreasingly high standards – one of the worst examples of film making to ever hit our screens. Within ten minutes the audience is confused and annoyed by a naivety in the direction that continues to astound with its amateur hour air. Messrs Ford and Hartnett, everything that is good about the generation gap in Hollywood, here seem to have found themselves in purgatory, contractually obliged to go through the motions after discovering that they had been duped by their respective agents.

This is neither funny or exciting, intriguing or ambitious. For the 111 minute running time, I would suggest a stint on the lawn, watching the grass grow. At least there is a smidgen of entertainment to be had in that!