Hollywood Homicide

Do with the following what you will, for whatever it may worth: I know a casting director who has long had aspirations of becoming a movie producer.

I know: Everyone in the entertainment business wants to be a producer, but this woman stands out in her aspirations because her reasons for this desire are anything but status quo: She wants to produce, she says, not because it would allow her more control over a given production but because she would no longer have to concern herself with finding the appropriate acting talent that would ultimately result in that most desired effect: Chemistry.

Of all the burdens that hang heavy around the neck of the Hollywood Machine Chemistry is by far the most burdensome. Give this some thought, consideration, and see my assertion to be true: How many films and movies become sleeper hits because, despite poor or inadequate direction and a flawed screenplay, the chemistry between two or more characters works? And how many films and movies, equally, ultimately fail because the chemistry between characters just isn't there?

Take as example of the latter "Hollywood Homicide". Here is an A-list flick with big name talent in front of and behind the camera, that should, in combination, make for a sure-fire hit and doesn't, with the singular reason being Chemistry.

Or, more accurately, lack thereof.

Individually Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett are good actors. They are. How else to explain their repeat box office draw? But put them together, into a buddy picture, and what happens?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except the realization you just wasted slightly less than two hours watching them lumber through the machinations that are the strike-a-pose school of acting.

Ford and Hartnett star in "Hollywood Homicide", which, as already noted, is a buddy flick. As such efforts go it could go without saying they play cops: Joe Gavilan and K.C. Calden (Ford and Hartnett, respectively). Gavilan is also a real-estate agent, while Calden is an aspiring actor. That they moonlight should signal something about this flick overall: Even their characters don't want to be here.

Because of their side business interests and because the plot does not have much else these two, detectives, incidentially, are assigned to Hollywood as their beat. How convenient. The more possible clients for Joe and the more possible exposure for Calden, the would-be actor.

And how moronic, as well. Is it realistic that Galivan is more interested in closing a deal than he is in protecting and serving? Come on. I know many a flatfoot who is on the take or who is simply dirty, but this antic is a bit much for that.

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