Hollywood Homicide

This sly satire of buddy-cop action-comedies replicates the genre's trappings so precisely that many viewers will mistake it for a genuinely bad buddy-cop action-comedy. Deliberately starting from a hackneyed Hollywood template--wisecracking odd-couple detectives Harrison Ford (middle-aged and grumpy) and Josh Hartnett (handsome, holistic, and inexperienced) investigate the murder of a rap group--writer-director Ron Shelton (who was coming off the genuinely cliché-riddled L.A. cop drama Dark Blue) embraces the plot's ostensible triteness and reshapes it into absurdist comedy without being conspicuously ironic or self-aware. Hollywood Homicide is often authentically slapdash, shallow, and silly (Ford is a failed part-time real-estate agent, Hartnett is a part-time yoga instructor and wannabe actor) because its mockery of prefabricated blockbusters is meant to sneak up on you. Blessed with its stars' antagonistic chemistry and entertaining in its intentional superficiality (shootouts! car chases! rooftop fisticuffs!), the film is a dead-clever parody. The only question is, will people get the joke? Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include both widescreen and full screen versions, audio commentary by director Ron Shelton, cast and crew filmographies, and trailers. Bottom line: always nice to have both versions on the same disc; otherwise, this extras package is a bit thin.] (R. Blackwelder)