John Badham`s ”The Hard Way” is a comic thriller that takes as its theme the invasion of Hollywood fantasy by hard-edged reality, yet the movie itself successfully deflects even the slightest incursion of verisimilitude.
It`s hard not to enjoy a movie that so blithely accepts its own contradictions. The picture seems to be deconstructing itself as it goes along, until all that`s left is a little pile of smoldering inconsistencies. The spectacle is fascinating, if not quite in the way the filmmakers intended. Badham, directing from a script by Daniel Pyne (”Pacific Heights”) and Lem Dobbs, presents the tale of a spoiled Hollywood action star, Nick Lang
(Michael J. Fox), who wants to upgrade his image from the cartoonish
”Indiana Jones”-style adventure films that have made his fortune.
When he sees, on cable TV, New York homicide cop John Moss (James Woods)
colorfully expressing his frustration over not being able to capture a notorious serial killer, Lang believes he has found his reality guru. He will go to Manhattan to study Moss, to work with him and live with him, absorbing the gritty authenticity Moss leaks from every pore.
The trouble is that Moss is even more of a cliche than Lang.
Short-tempered, foul-mouthed, ill-groomed and, of course, thoroughly dedicated to the thankless task of ridding society of its scum and lowlife, Moss is a familiar figure from countless films of the last 20 years, where he has been played on more than one occasion by Woods himself.
The cliche cop is tracking a cliche villain-a generic psycho killer
(Stephen Lang, the tragic lug of ”Last Exit to Brooklyn”) of the subgenus ubermensch (blond, brainy and muscular) who has earned the nickname ”the Party Crasher” for his habit of invading crowded nightclubs and summarily executing drug dealers, pimps and other undesirables.
The movie is reasonably funny as long as it sticks to its simple premise. Fox dogs Woods on every step of his rounds, studying his smallest gestures and recording his most characteristic turns of phrase on a pocket tape recorder. Though he tries to disguise himself, people keep telling him he looks like that famous movie star Nick Lang, ”only shorter.”
The wittiest moment in the film is a coming-attractions trailer for Lang`s latest hit, ”Smoking Gunn II,” which allows Badham to parody the exaggerated visual style and pumped-up rhetoric of contemporary Hollywood thrillers.
But inevitably, the moment comes when ”The Hard Way” itself assumes that exaggeration, via a shootout staged on a giant head of Nick Lang-an animated billboard for ”Smoking Gunn II”-perched high above Times Square.
Far less successful is the movie`s glum turn into buddy-movie conventions, as the two antagonists learn to love and respect one another. Moss teaches Lang that the real world is harsh and unforgiving, while Lang gives Moss some pointers on opening up emotionally to his girlfriend (spunky Annabella Sciorra).
Badham, once a socially observant filmmaker (”Saturday Night Fever”)
and an accomplished craftsman (”Blue Thunder”), has become unconscionably sloppy with the passing of time, and if ”The Hard Way” never feels quite as thin and shoddy as his ”Bird on a Wire” of last summer, it is entirely because of the stars, who give the project a steadiness and dedication it otherwise lacks. The film lazily degenerates into a series of false climaxes and arbitrarily inserted chases as it approaches its close-a wholly cynical, commercial approach that represents, very much, the easy way. Reality does not figure in it.
”THE HARD WAY”
(STAR)(STAR)
Directed by John Badham; written by Daniel Pyne and Lem Dobbs; photographed by Don McAlpine and Robert Primes; production designed by Philip Harrison; edited by Frank Morriss and Tony Lombardo; music by Arthur B. Rubinstein; produced by William Sackheim and Rob Cohen. A Universal Studios release; opens March 8 at the Water Tower, Webster Place and outlying theaters. Running time: 1:51. MPAA rating: R. Strong language, violence.
THE CAST
Nick Lang………………………………………….Michael J. Fox
John Moss…………………………………………….James Woods
Party Crasher………………………………………..Stephen Lang
Susan…………………………………………..Annabella Sciorra
Grainy……………………………………………..John Capodice
