Yes, I’m guilty as charged. I don’t like to admit this often, but there are a few actors I like to see so much, that it blinds me to how bad everything else is with the movie. Harrison Ford is one of those guys. He’s such an easygoing, everyday guy, I sometimes forget I’m watching him play someone else.

This time he takes the role of Joe Gavilan, LAPD homicide detective, part-time real estate salesman. His partner is K.C. Calden, played by Josh Hartnett. K.C. would really rather be an actor. Which if you can stomach it, is the long running joke of this movie. It’s what the rest of the country and the world, for that matter, thinks of us out here on the “left coast”. Specifically, “Los Angeleeees” people.

You know, the clichés about us. We all yack on cellphones, we’re into goofy stuff like yoga, psychics are everywhere, many of us do one boring job but dream of another (acting), and, of course, the car chases. So there – you have most of “Hollywood Homicide” in a nutshell.

I guess you noticed the word “Homicide” in the title. Yeah, there is a quadruple murder for Joe and K.C. to solve, but that gets pushed way into the backround. Until the end, and that’s where this movie really goes wrong.

You see, I was sort of enjoying the pointless story of Joe and K.C.. Joe has big financial problems because we all know cops don’t make much money, but he can’t sell a house either. And K.C. reminds you of one of those people who dream of stardom but do little about it while going about their real jobs with no talent or enthusiasm. It was kind of like watching a reality show. I was thinking how unconventional it all was – a cop movie about almost nothing. Yup, very low key, just killing time. They even downplayed the mismatched cop buddy thing between Joe and K.C. and that was kind of rewarding in and of itself. It was the action cop movie that wasn’t. That is until…

Until they had to figure out how to bring it all together to solve that murder case. Too bad, because the last twenty minutes are consumed with the car chase from hell (it seemed like it would never end – back into the Red Line subway system we go again) and cell phones that never stopped ringing. The joke about that was long over, but nobody figured that out. Gee, is it really that funny that Joe is able to complete a big home sale on the phone while chasing and busting one of the killers? Not to me. And, can we ban L.A. TV news people from appearing in any more movies? Enough of Hal Fishman, Eric Spillman and , this time, Jennifer York in that traffic copter. Note to you people -you’re not going to go anywhere with a movie career playing yourself. And badly at that.

What I said at the beginning broke apart – I did notice how bad this movie is even with Harrison holding his own. I sense the real motive here is to set-up Josh Hartnett as the next Harrison Ford. A guy Harrison’s age can’t beat up guys forever. I give “Hollywood Homicide” a “4.0” on the scale.