The Buddy Factor

NY Daily News
By Lael Loewenstein
June 8th, 2003

Cop movie 'Hollywood Homicide' looks to draw on
once fail-safe popularity of male-bonding formula

Name the actor, spot the buddy movie. Eddie Murphy? "48 Hrs.," with Nick Nolte. Robert De Niro? "Midnight Run," with Charles Grodin. Mel Gibson? "Lethal Weapon" and its sequels, with Danny Glover. Bruce Willis? "Bandits," with Billy Bob Thornton. Even veteran star Harrison Ford, used to flying solo, now finds himself paired with an actor less than half his age, Josh Hartnett, in "Hollywood Homicide."

Hard times for Harrison Star faces uncertain future

It wasn't so long ago that Harrison Ford's name was synonymous with Hollywood blockbusters. Ford's films have grossed more than $5.6 billion worldwide, averaging more than $200 million each, according to Daily Variety. In the mid-'80s, Ford pictures accounted for five of the top 10-grossing films of all time, and long after their initial release the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" (inset, below) series are still among the top-earners in movie history. His '90s hits "The Fugitive" and "Air Force One" showed he could still deliver, a fact confirmed by a 1999 Harris poll listing him as the favorite U.S. movie actor of all time.

But lately Ford, 60, has started to stumble. The romance "Random Hearts" failed to generate much heat, and last summer's Russian submarine adventure "K-19" tanked. The $35 million it earned domestically was a scant $10 million more than Ford's reported salary. Of the latter film's poor performance, Ford sniffs, "I'm over it."

He blames it on a badly timed release date, and bristles at the suggestion that people were unwilling to accept him with a Russian accent. "A lot of what was said in that regard was misinformed. Critics had the opportunity to fixate on [the accent], and they had a lot of fun with it," he says. "It was hard for people to want to experience a story they had an investment in, from a Russian point of view, during a summer movie season."

He is more hopeful about "Hollywood Homicide," in which he and Josh Hartnett play cops trying to solve a murder while Ford's character pursues a side career in real estate and Hartnett's in acting. Does making a buddy movie with an actor 36 years his junior suggest Ford is ready to pass the baton?

"Nonsense" is the message you get from the ever-intractable Ford. Instead, he is keenly aware that bringing Hartnett into the mix was a savvy way to lure younger moviegoers. "One of the things that appealed to me about this kind of summer caper movie was the business sense that the whole thing made," says Ford, who attends test screenings of his films and studies audience-reaction cards.

When Ford learned Paramount was planning to release "Titanic" alongside "Air Force One" in July 1997, he famously dashed off an angry missive to the studio. The upshot: "Titanic" was delayed and "Air Force One" became a huge hit.

"Hollywood Homicide" may well prove a watershed moment in Ford's career. He clearly needs to reconnect with audiences. "Yeah, he needs a hit," says its director, Ron Shelton. "We all need a hit. But Harrison will survive. I think he'll work as long as he wants to work. He's a smart guy who makes interesting choices."

Whether those choices are diverse enough to sustain a legacy as an actor, and not as a star doing variations on a theme, is another matter.

"If nothing else, at this stage, Ford's career proves that at a certain point age is as big a problem for male stars as for female stars," notes Los Angeles Times film critic Manohla Dargis. "There are all sorts of ways to grow old in the movies, but one of the worst things you can do is try to pretend you're the same guy you were 15, 20 years ago — able to jump tall buildings and women half your age. Smart actors like Jack Nicholson, who went from 'About Schmidt' into a crowd-pleaser like 'Anger Management,' forestall obsolescence by diversifying. But one of the problems with Ford, I think, is that unlike Nicholson, he's never shown much interest in being an actor; he's committed to being a star. A star doesn't play a portly, balding insurance actuary like Nicholson did [in "About Schmidt"] — an actor does."

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Harrison Ford Web is making such material available in an effort to promote research. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.