The Hard Way (1991)

Directed by John Badham. Starring James Woods, Michael J. Fox, Annabella Sciorra, Stephen Lang, Delroy Lindo, Luis Guzmán, Conrad Roberts, Penny Marshall, Christina Ricci. [R]

Spoiled action movie star Nick Lang (Fox) wants a part in a serious cop drama, but is worried he’s seen as too much of an acting lightweight to be convincing as a seasoned police officer, so he flies out to New York to follow around hard-bitten, foul-mouthed NYPD Lieutenant John Moss (Woods), who is somewhat less than accommodating to the actor’s presence. Bickering buddy action comedy formula is straight off the assembly line, but is put over by virtue of good production values, slick direction and photography, and the high-energy presence of the stars, who do good work both together and individually. As the serial murderer that Woods obsesses with taking down, Lang doesn’t bring much to his cut-rate psycho besides wild eyes and physical menace. The climax, set on a three-dimensional billboard, goes too far afield from the realm of plausibility; before then, the flick stood out as one of the better examples of the oft-dubious sub-genre. Though the script’s plotting is suspect, a lot of the dialogue is quite funny, with a few in-jokes for movie buffs. LL Cool J has a small role as a cop whose first appearance comes outside of a club blasting the rapper’s hit song “Mama Said Knock You Out.” Look for Lewis Black as an unruly pizzeria patron.

71/100