HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE []
Harrison Ford, comedian? Running time: 111 minutes. Rated PG-13 (violence, sexual situations and language). At the Empire, the Lincoln Square, the Orpheum, others.
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SEXAGENARIAN Harrison Ford, apparently seeking a forum for levity after the leaden flop “K- 19: The Widowmaker,” has unfortunately chosen the alleged buddy-cop action comedy “Hollywood Homicide.”
There’s little action in this snail-paced bore, you’ll need a high-powered magnifying glass to spot the comedy and the “buddies” have about as much chemistry as a pair of wet socks.
Well, at least the cop shoe fits.
Poor Josh Hartnett has the unlucky task of playing straight man to Ford, as the elder statesman makes a stab at flat-out comedy – and falls woefully short, relying heavily on the smirk-cum-grimace he’s bestowed upon characters from Han Solo on.
Both actors are working double-time to transcend the alarmingly unfunny and formulaic script attributed to director Ron Shelton (who recently made the serious cop drama “Dark Blue”) and 22-year LAPD vet Robert Souza.
The central comedic conceit is that LAPD partners Joe Gavilan (Ford), a thrice-divorced veteran cop, and his New Age sidekick of four months, K.C. Calden (Hartnett), are more devoted to pursuing their respective “jobs on the side” than their bread-and-butter police work.
Gavilan works as a part-time real estate broker, targeting witnesses and suspects as potential clients, while lady-killer Calden teaches a yoga class stacked with babes while seeking to “find his bliss” as an actor.
The pair is assigned to a quadruple homicide in a nightclub, where the victims are members of an up-and-coming hip-hop group.
Their investigation is hampered by the group’s uncooperative producer (Isaiah Washington), his psycho sidekick (country singer Dwight Yoakam) and Internal Affairs officer Benny Macko (Bruce Greenwood), who has a personal ax to grind with Gavilan.
Complicating matters – but not making them any funnier – is the fact that Gavilan is now seeing Macko’s ex-girlfriend, a late-night phone psychic named Ruby (Lena Olin), and Calden’s father was – sigh – a cop who was killed in the line of duty.
Oh, and there’s a Hollywood madam (Lolita Davidovich) somehow caught up in Gavilan and Macko’s grudge match.
Besides a plethora of moldy “Isn’t Hollywood wacky?” japes, the so-called humor in “Hollywood Homicide” relies heavily on making Ford look foolish by sending up his aging action-hero persona.
You’ll merely feel embarrassed for him when he sets out in hot pursuit on a pink child’s bicycle or makes a pre-coital quip to Ruby: “If I take my gingko, I can remember where I put the Viagra.”
Even a seemingly endless stream of cameos (Eric Idle, Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight, Robert Wagner and Lou Diamond Phillips as a transvestite hooker) can’t keep this dud from being as irritating as the flog-a-dead-horse joke about the partners’ novelty cell phones that repeatedly ring at inopportune moments.