Hollywood Homicide

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

It's the ideal capper for a cop comedy with a refreshingly wry, adult and humane attitude.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Like all Shelton's movies, Hollywood Homicide rambles and shambles, and like most of them, it ultimately settles into its own appealing rhythm.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

One of the pleasures of Hollywood Homicide is that it's more interested in its two goofy cops than in the murder plot; their dialogue redeems otherwise standard scenes.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

At its best, "Hollywood" has the breezy irreverence and easy, sunny L.A. atmosphere of Shelton's 1992 "White Men Can't Jump," a buddy-buddy basketball-hustle movie.

Slate David Edelstein

It's bursting with goofy banter, Hollywood in-jokes, sexy love scenes, and chases that go on much too long but have the kind of madcap self-indulgence that makes questions of logic or credibility seem dull-witted. It's a great piece of mindful escapism.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

A definite improvement on the recent spate of dull action movies, if only because it has such a marked sense of humor about itself and the genre it belongs to. But somehow it never quite finds its center.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

He (Ford) slips into the role as if it were a pair of well-worn loafers, the left inherited from Peter Falk, the right from Clint Eastwood, and then proceeds, with wry nonchalance, to tap-dance, shuffle and pirouette through his loosest, wittiest performance in years.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Combines silly stuff about life in Los Angeles with buoyant energy, a couple of chases worthy of the Keystone Kops and quick-witted actors playing droll characters with obvious affection.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Is it, you know, fun? At times. Yet there's a rote quality to the way this half-dumb, half-sly movie resolves itself into an intentional debauch, a pileup of villainy and heavy metal. The only California dream it leaves you with is one of wretched excess.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Ten minutes in, and the verdict is already clear: This is a flick that goes both ways. It's funny, then it's not; it's cooking, then it isn't; it's different, then it ain't.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

When the movie works, it gleefully skewers the clichés of the buddy cop genre... When it doesn't work, it's exactly what it purports to be lampooning--a lame, boring cop buddy movie.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Though its ending feels protracted--especially the climactic chase--it kept me reasonably distracted.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

A film of curiosities and asides, it deliberately eschews plot in favor of character quirk, which is fine in theory and even commendable. But the quirks are lame, the ultimate conflation of story lines is clumsy.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Ford tries very hard to be eccentrically funny -- to the point of forced, slapsticky mugging -- but he looks terrible, his timing is way off and his character is so uptight, abrasive and unappealing that he makes miserable company.

Premiere Addison MacDonald

The movie is a mess, but Harnett and Ford are likable enough to make Hollywood Homicide a unique addition to the cookie-cutter spectacles that usually grace theaters during the summer months.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Although Ford does not exactly mail in his performance, this is a lazy job, and far from his best work. On top of that, he has no chemistry with co-star (and heartthrob of the moment) Josh Hartnett.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

A frustrating blend of the sharply funny and the ploddingly generic. Although he does them well enough, we don’t really need Ron Shelton to give us the same old skidding-U-turn cop-thriller theatrics. He’s a much more distinctive talent than this crass spree allows for.

Newsweek David Ansen

Inside this numbingly formulaic action comedy there's a small, quirky movie not screaming hard enough to get out--the kind of movie that director and co-writer Ron Shelton (“Bull Durham,” “Tin Cup”) could have had some real fun with.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Escapism with a human touch -- it feels lived-in.

Variety Todd McCarthy

An attempt to merge a semi-jokey buddy movie with a more realistic account of cops' messy private lives, Hollywood Homicide falls short on both counts.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

One of the most lazily scripted, poorly structured, smugly stereotyped star vehicles in recent memory. Bizarrely, this seems to be the point.

USA Today Mike Clark

Somewhere within all of this there really is a homicide -- a hip-hop industry rub-out that may someday make this movie half of a passable DVD double feature with Nick Broomfield's documentary Biggie and Tupac.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's periodically enlivened by unlikely cameos, including Lou Diamond Phillips as an undercover cop posing as a transvestite hooker and Gladys Knight as a forgotten Motown singer.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Fact is, good looks will go a long way in masking mediocrity, and Hollywood Homicide capitalizes on that fact doubly so: Co-writer/director Ron Shelton’s latest boasts two pretty faces, and all across the country, mothers and daughters sigh alike.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Ultimately, this movie cowritten by Shelton and former L.A. police detective Robert Souza has more laughs than suspense, but not enough of either.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

No one comes out of Hollywood Homicide looking good, but the film fades fast.

LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert

Nothing, in fact, really fits together, most notably the partnership of Ford and Hartnett: Looking weathered yet professional, Ford carries what he can, but pretty and sullen Hartnett barely comes to life, leaving his partner stranded, and straining.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Souza and Shelton throw in all kinds of ridiculous devices they learned in second-year screenwriting class.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Hollywood Homicide is about murder, all right: the wholesale slaughter of anything funny, original or even vaguely logical.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Hollywood Homicide knows it's a dog, and it ain't too proud to beg.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

The film doesn't even cut it as cheap escapism.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

It's a humiliating comedown for Ford, and he looks creaky and grumpy, obviously aware that he is miscast and dreading every scene.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Lands with a thud right from its painfully unfunny prologue and maintains its plodding, exasperating course straight through to its car-chase-and-shootout finale.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

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.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

By the time it ended, I'd stopped caring. I suspect most moviegoers will do the same. Here's hoping Shelton scurries back to the athletic world in a hurry.

Film Threat Kevin Carr

Yup, Hollywood Homicide”rips off practically every cop movie out there. My god in heaven, did anyone making this film have an original thought in their lives?