Roger Ebert Loved This Harrison Ford Action Comedy That Other Critics Hated

It doesn't feel entirely accurate to say that Roger Ebert often went against the grain, seeing as the esteemed critic was entirely unconcerned with the "grain" or which way it ran. All he cared about was conveying his honest opinion on a film, and that often resulted in some takes that happened to be incidentally contrarian — like when he gave the critically-derided 2003 Harrison Ford action comedy "Hollywood Homicide" a positive review.

In his long career, Ebert handed out many positive reviews to otherwise dismissed movies. He loved the mediocre Samuel L. Jackson thriller "Lakeview Terrace," for instance, and gave a perfect score to the controversial 1970s acid Western "El Topo." But even "Lakeview Terrace" fared better critically than "Hollywood Homicide," a movie dubbed a "snail-paced bore" by Megan Lehmann of the New York Post.

Roger Ebert, on the other hand, felt that "Hollywood Homicide" deserved three out of four stars. That must have been heartening for Ford to hear, seeing as he was in a real career lull at the time. Indeed, back in 2003, he was coming off a major flop in the form of "K-19: The Widowmaker," and his track record in general had been relatively inconsistent since the mid-to-late 1990s. "Hollywood Homicide" didn't exactly help in that regard, but at least it won over one of the world's most renowned film critics.

The initial lack of a script for "Hollywood Homicide" was actually a selling point for Harrison Ford. Apparently, the actor was looking for something loose and freewheeling, which is what attracted him to the film in the first place. However, when you watch him in the movie itself, he seems anything but pleased to be there.

"Hollywood Homicide" has Ford and Josh Hartnett playing LAPD homicide Sergeant Joe Gavilan and Detective K.C. Calden, respectively. Outside of his primary job, Gavilan also makes a living as a real estate agent, whereas Calden aspires to be an actor. They're a typical mismatched duo, in other words, with Ford capitalizing on his inherent grumpiness and playing his character almost entirely straight throughout. Meanwhile, Hartnett does his best to portray a more idealistic, outgoing police officer as the pair are, in traditional buddy cop comedy fashion, forced to come together to solve a murder case (in this case, one involving rappers).

That all made for a darn good time at the movies according to Roger Ebert, who wrote in his review that "one of the pleasures of 'Hollywood Homicide' is that it's more interested in its two goofy cops than in the murder plot." For the critic, Ford and Hartnett's dialogue saved otherwise dull scenes. What's more, while many critics found Ford's performance to be lugubrious, Ebert couldn't get enough, writing that the actor "just gets better, more distilled, more laconic, and more gruffly likable, year after year." Beyond that, he seemed to enjoy the climax, which featured what Ebert described as a "chase and a half." Overall, he had a great time with the film, even if most other critics thought it was a bore-fest.

"Hollywood Homicide" is certainly not what most folks would consider one of Harrison Ford's greatest movies. Case in point: At the time of writing, it only has a 31% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, with David Ansen asking in his Newsweek review, "How could so many talented people make such a tepid, superfluous movie?" 

Other reviewers were even more condemnatory. The Washington Post's Desson Thomson summed up the film as being about "the wholesale slaughter of anything funny, original, or even vaguely logical." Elsewhere, Ty Burr of the Boston Globe found "Hollywood Homicide" to be "one of the most lazily scripted, poorly structured, smugly stereotyped star vehicles in recent memory," whereas the New York Daily News' Jami Bernard seemed embarrassed for the film's star, summing the whole thing up as "a humiliating comedown for Ford."

The New York Daily News similarly argued that Ford looked "creaky and grumpy" throughout, and put it down to him being acutely aware that he was "miscast." J. Hoberman of the Village Voice likewise dubbed Ford "essentially humorless," which, in retrospect, is a shame given what we know about the man's comedic abilities post-"Shrinking."

Yet again, though, Roger Ebert absolutely loved Ford's contributions to the film, highlighting his commitment to the straight man bit as one of the highlights. Discussing a scene where Joe Gavilan tries to sell a club owner on a property, Ebert wrote, "You don't feel he's going for laughs when he tries to sell the club owner a house, while the two of them are standing in fresh pools of blood, metaphorically speaking; you feel he desperately needs to unload the house." For the critic, this just worked, resulting in another of his great, accidentally contrarian, takes.