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Hollywood Homicide

Hollywood Homicide is a 2003 American buddy cop action comedy film starring Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett, with a supporting cast including Rena OWen, Bruce Greenwood, Isaiah Washington, Lolita Davidovich, Keith David, Gladys Knight, Master P, Dwight Yoakam, Eric Idle, Ron Shelton,Robert Wagner, Kurupt, Smokey Robinson, Lou Diamond Phillips, Martin Landau, and André Benjamin. It was directed by Ron Shelton, written by Shelton and Robert Souza, and produced by Shelton and Lou Pitt. The film is based on the true experiences of Souza, who was a homicide detective in the LAPD Hollywood Division and moonlighted as a real estate broker in his final ten years on the job. The film's title sequence is done by Wayne Fitzgerald, which marks it as his final time doing a title sequence before his death in September 2019.

Hollywood Homicide
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRon Shelton
Written by
  • Robert Souza
  • Ron Shelton
Produced by
  • Lou Pitt
  • Ron Shelton
Starring
CinematographyBarry Peterson
Edited byPaul Seydor
Music byAlex Wurman
Production
companies
Distributed byDreamWorks Pictures
Release date
  • June 8, 2003 (2003-06-08)
Running time
116 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$75 million
Box office$51.1 million

Plot

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Sergeant Joe Gavilan is a financially strapped homicide detective with the Hollywood Division of the LAPD. He has been moonlighting as a real estate agent for seven years. His current partner is Detective K.C. Calden, a much younger detective who teaches yoga on the side and wants to be an actor.

The partners are investigating the murders of the four members of rap group "H2OClick", who were gunned down in a nightclub by two unidentified assailants. The detectives discover there was a witness who fled, and they work to track him down. They are distracted, failing to bond as partners, as Gavilan has to deal with a looming real estate deal that may be the key to getting out of debt, while Calden further pursues his dreams of acting by trying to be scouted by talent agents.

Meanwhile, the manager of H2OClick, Antoine Sartain, has his head of security eliminate the two hitmen, whom he had hired to kill H2OClick, and earlier a rapper named Klepto that Sartain also managed.

Gavilan and Calden believe the murders are gang-related, but when Calden happens to see the bodies of the hitmen at the morgue, they conclude that the murders were orchestrated. The detectives also notice similarities that tie the H2OClick and Klepto homicides together. Gavilan learns from an undercover officer that the songwriter for H2OClick, a man named K-Ro, has gone missing, leading Gavilan to believe he is their murder witness. They struggle to track him down until they finally learn his real name, Oliver Robideaux, the son of former Motown singer Olivia Robideaux.

Meanwhile, Internal Affairs Lieutenant Bernard "Bennie" Macko arrives at the station. Macko and Gavilan have a bad history, as Gavilan embarrassed Macko after proving him wrong on a case years ago. The animosity is compounded by the fact that Gavilan's latest love interest, a psychic named Ruby, used to date Macko.

Macko is intent on ruining Gavilan, going so far as to try to frame him and place both detectives in interrogation. Instead, it only serves to help Gavilan and Calden strengthen their partnership. Gavilan offers to help Calden with the case of his father's death; Officer Danny Calden had been gunned down during a sting operation gone wrong, with his partner, Officer Leroy Wasley, being implicated but eventually released due to lack of evidence.

The partners track down K-Ro to his home, where Olivia professes her son's innocence and that Sartain was the real culprit. Sartain had been embezzling money from Klepto, H2OClick and other clients for years. Klepto and H2OClick discovered this and threatened to hire lawyers to nullify their contracts, which led Sartain to have his head of security hire the hitmen as a "lesson" to all his clients. Wasley is not only Sartain's security chief, but Macko is also in league with him.

When the partners cannot locate Sartain and Wasley, Gavilan enlists Ruby's help. She uses her psychic power to lead the two detectives to a clothing store. Just then, Sartain and Wasley happened to drive by, so Gavilan and Calden follow in a wild car chase. It ends with the four men on foot, with two separate chases.

In a struggle with Gavilan, Sartain ends up falling from the top of a building to his death. Wasley draws a gun on Calden and loudly brags about having killed his father. Calden utilizes his acting skills to distract and incapacitate Wasley, and reveals he had a tape recorder on the whole time. Gavilan and Calden reunite as LAPD officers swarm the scene. Macko appears and calls for the arrests of the partners, but instead he is arrested for his part in covering up Sartain and Wasley's crimes.

Gavilan and Ruby attend a production of A Streetcar Named Desire, in which Calden is in a lead role. It is implied that Gavilan successfully brokered the real estate deal, and Calden is giving his all in the pursuit of his acting dream. However, both of them receive calls from police headquarters and leave in the middle of the play, now solid partners.

Cast

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Production

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The roles of Gavilan and Calden were originally given to John Travolta and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, respectively, before Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett eventually signed on. Ford was looking for fresher material and UTA, the agency that had recently signed him, suggested it based on Ron Shelton's profile at the time. Joe Roth, the Revolution Studios Head, reportedly offered the role to Bruce Willis, with his producing partner Arnold Rifkin along to produce as well.

Throughout filming, Ford and Hartnett reportedly did not get along. Things apparently got so tense that the two wouldn't even look each other in the eye when sharing scenes together, with Ford calling Hartnett a "punk" while Hartnett responded by calling Ford an "old fart". They reportedly carried over the feud into the promotional tour for the film. Other reports from people on-set indicated that Hartnett was very reverential, and that he only signed on to the film because of Ford's involvement.

Reception

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On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Hollywood Homicide holds an approval rating of 30% based on 163 reviews, and an average rating of 4.71/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Hollywood Homicide suffers from too many subplots and not enough laughs."[1] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 47 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[2] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[3]

Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post wrote, "Hollywood Homicide is a buddy film starring two people who, even as the closing credits roll, appear to have just met" and added "every scene between them, and that's most every scene, feels like a screen test or, at best, a rehearsal."[4] One of the few major critics to give it a positive notice was Roger Ebert, who awarded the film 3 out of 4 stars and wrote "that it's more interested in its two goofy cops than in the murder plot; their dialogue redeems otherwise standard scenes."[5] Bob Longino of The Atlanta Constitution gave the film a C, describing it as "the opposite of L.A. Confidential, it's D.O.A., but it does have one good chase scene."[6]

Box office

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Hollywood Homicide did not perform well at the box office, earning a total gross that was lower than its $75 million budget. It ranked number 5 and grossed $11,112,632 in its opening weekend, coming in well below Rugrats Go Wild, Bruce Almighty, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and first-place holder Finding Nemo, the latter of which was in its third weekend.[7] The film ended its box office run after 12 weeks, grossing $30,940,691 in Canada and the United States and $20,201,968 in other markets for a worldwide total of $51,142,659.[8]

Home media

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Hollywood Homicide was released on VHS and DVD on October 7, 2003 by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment.[9][10] The DVD edition included a director's commentary, cast and crew profiles and a theatrical trailer.[11] In 2013, Mill Creek Entertainment released the film for the first time on Blu-ray in a 2 pack set with Hudson Hawk, without any extra features.[12]

References

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  1. ^ "Hollywood Homicide (2003)". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on July 30, 2020. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  2. ^ "Hollywood Homicide Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on June 17, 2018. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
  3. ^ "Hollywood Homicide". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on December 14, 2019. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
  4. ^ O'Sullivan, Michael (2003-06-13). "Murder in Blah Blah Land". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2017-10-16. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  5. ^ Ebert, Roger (2003-06-13). "Hollywood Homicide Review". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on 2012-10-02. Retrieved 2017-10-16.
  6. ^ Longino, Bob (June 13, 2003). "'Hollywood Homicide' Has Ford, Hartnett, But Little Else". The Atlanta Constitution. p. F1. Retrieved November 2, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ "Audiences Find 'Nemo'". CBS News. June 16, 2003. Archived from the original on 2022-02-07. Retrieved 2023-03-11.
  8. ^ "Hollywood Homicide (2003)". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 2010-01-16. Retrieved 2009-08-02.
  9. ^ Patrizio, Andy (September 25, 2003). "Hollywood Homicide Preview". IGN. Archived from the original on April 8, 2023. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
  10. ^ Fretts, Bruce. "Hollywood Homicide". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on May 19, 2007. Retrieved 2015-10-31.
  11. ^ "Hollywood Homicide : DVD Talk Review of the DVD Video". Dvdtalk.com. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2015-10-31.
  12. ^ "Mill Creek Entertainment: Hollywood Homicide & Hudson Hawk - BD Double Feature". Millcreekent.com. 2013-03-26. Archived from the original on 2017-07-14. Retrieved 2015-10-31.
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