Movies You Aught Not Watch is Nick Rogers’ weekly, alphabetical look back at the 52 worst films of 2000 to 2009.
Dear Harrison Ford,
By the time you received this letter, your soul was already dead. It was sad enough watching you attempt career euthanasia in Six Days, Seven Nights, Random Hearts and K-19: The Widowmaker. At least here, you didn’t wear an earring or talk like Boris Badenov.
But you did show your wispy, white-haired old-man chest again in this 2003 stinker, a truly unholy sight. You and Josh Hartnett playing two cops investigating a rap-industry murder while moonlighting as real-estate agents, yoga instructors and actors? Please. Biting into burnt toast for two hours would have been more thrilling.
You and Hartnett had the chemistry of Tom Green and Drew Barrymore’s marriage. OK, maybe it wasn’t entirely your fault. Director Ron Shelton probably didn’t let you in on that Hollywood Homicide was essentially just an apologetic make-good for the whipping he gave the L.A.P.D. with Dark Blue. What really hurts was that you took a pass on Michael Douglas’s role in Traffic to sign on for this.
But it wasn’t funny when you mugged with Master P., riffed with Lou Diamond Phillips as a cop dressed in drag, thrust your pelvis in an interrogation room or made love to Lena Olin while eating a doughnut. Watching you flail during a rooftop fight was distressing. And it’s sad you needed an obvious stunt double to only kick someone in the rear.
Please let us know if everything is OK with you.
Sincerely,
Nick Rogers