In Hollywood, when you're number one with a bullet, they call in the cops.

Revolution Studios presents Hollywood Homicide, a fast paced action comedy directed by Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump), starring Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett.

Harrison Ford portrays veteran detective Joe Gavilan, a weary but tenacious police veteran at the top of his game professionally, though his personal life is rapidly unraveling. His partner, K.C. Calden (Josh Hartnett), seems to be more interested in his side jobs as a yoga teacher and aspiring actor than in the high-profile gangland-style murder they are currently investigating.

Welcome to the land of blue skies, palm trees and dead bodies.

Revolution Studios Presents A Pitt/Shelton Production Hollywood Homicide starring Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett, a Columbia Pictures release. The film also stars Lena Olin, Bruce Greenwood, Isaiah Washington, Lolita Davidovich, Keith David, Master P and Lou Diamond Phillips with Dwight Yoakam and Martin Landau.

Hollywood Homicide is directed by Ron Shelton and written by Robert Souza & Ron Shelton. Lou Pitt and Shelton are the producers. Joe Roth and David Lester serve as executive producers. Barry Peterson is the director of photography. Jim Bissell is the production designer. The film is edited by Paul Seydor, A.C.E. Bernie Pollack is the costume designer. The music is by Alex Wurman. The music supervision is by Dawn Solér and Kathy Nelson.

Hollywood Homicide is a fast paced action comedy that provides a rare inside look at the professional and personal lives of two Los Angeles Police Department officers. Harrison Ford stars as Joe Gavilan, a hard-nosed veteran. He is paired with one of today's fastest rising young talents, Josh Hartnett, as his reluctant partner K.C. Calden, who is more interested in teaching yoga and pursuing an acting career than he is in detective work.

Director, co-writer and producer Ron Shelton explores the practice of law enforcement in the glamour capital, scraping away the glitz to reveal what's underneath.

"There is an absurdity to L.A. that I find attractive," says Shelton. "Los Angeles isn't really a city in the normal sense, and movies aren't really made in Hollywood. That is, if you can even find Hollywood."

The other milieu Shelton explores is the driving and sometimes chaotic world of the recording industry, in particular the hip-hop music scene, where the killing of a fictitious rap music group seems culled from today's headlines.

After hearing veteran homicide investigator Robert Souza's stories of his colorful career at the Hollywood division of the LAPD, Hollywood Homicide producer Lou Pitt was intrigued by the private side of a policeman's life, an environment movies rarely explore. "It was the personal stuff they have to deal with while they're trying to solve crimes that I found really compelling," says Pitt. "I wanted to know more about who these guys are and to make a film that showed their personal lives in a way we've never seen before. Like too many of us, they have to find a way to juggle the demands of their work and their lives."

Souza says he was influenced by another ex-LAPD policeman turned author, Joseph Wambaugh (The Onion Field, The New Centurions), who also combined his professional exploits as a detective with compelling personal stories. Like the central characters in Hollywood Homicide, Souza regularly had side jobs while he was serving with the LAPD. Where did he find the time? "When you're on an intense case, you rack up tremendous overtime, so you end up with a lot of time off and that creates opportunities for other activities," Souza explains. "Throughout my career, I worked at everything from real estate to private security to repossessing cars. And I worked with guys who were cabinet makers, certified public accountants and tennis pros."

The discussions between Souza and Pitt prompted Pitt to recall the time he came into contact with a police officer, who was also pursuing another vocation. "Once my home was burglarized and when the police investigator learned I was in the movie business, he wanted to know if I was an agent. I told him I was. He excused himself, went to his car and pulled a script out of the trunk of his car and asked me to read it. He said if I didn't like this draft he had several other versions," Pitt laughs.

It's a much more common experience than most people realize, according to Souza, especially for cops on the beat in Hollywood. "I once had a partner who wanted to be an actor. He carried 8 x 10 glossy head shots around with him to hand out to entertainment industry people with whom he came into contact."

Another aspect of Souza's experience that intrigued Pitt was his occasional clashes with the LAPD's Internal Affairs Division, an element that became a major plot thread in the screenplay Souza and Shelton eventually wrote. "Bob headed a lot of high profile cases, and during his investigations, Internal Affairs was constantly looking over his shoulder," says Pitt.

"I've had a controversial career, so I was ducking internal affairs on several occasions," Souza confesses. "It was never anything illegal, just simply things that didn't always conform precisely to department policy."

Pitt introduced Souza to Shelton, who was also taken by the former policeman's stories, so much so he hired Souza as a technical consultant on Dark Blue, a gritty take on the LAPD based on a James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential) story. It was during production on Dark Blue that Shelton and Souza began to discuss Hollywood Homicide.

In his interactions with Souza and other retired detectives, Shelton learned "that there's a whole comic side to the very serious jobs these people do. The genesis of Hollywood Homicide was born out of anecdotes from men and women who had spent their lives solving crimes in a land they described in shorthand as 'blue skies, palm trees and dead bodies.' "Many of the most absurd situations in the film actually come from their real experiences," Shelton avers.

After production wrapped on Dark Blue, Shelton and Souza began concentrating on Hollywood Homicide. "We actually wrote it together, though not in the same room," says Souza. "Sometimes we were hundreds of miles apart, using faxes, e-mails and cell phones. Still, it was a total collaboration. Ron brought his magical touch to the story and the actors have helped us make it even richer."

Shelton and Pitt took their idea to Joe Roth, founder of Revolution Studios and executive producer of Hollywood Homicide. ""Ron has an uncanny ability to make ordinary characters in everyday situations both memorable and relatable. Here was a story that was funny and dramatic, with tragic moments and tons of action. It was a very satisfying mixture of genres," says Roth, who had first worked with Shelton on White Men Can't Jump. "I immediately suggested Harrison Ford for the role of Joe as well as Josh Hartnett, who had just done Black Hawk Down for us, for the part of K.C. Calden."

"Joe's instinct to the casting of the principle talent was right on the money," says Pitt, "because it gave us an added dimension and the ability to appeal to the multigenerational design of the film and of the audience."

Ford was immediately intrigued by Shelton and Souza's offbeat tale. "Hollywood Homicide is the kind of story I'm always looking for but rarely find - a great blend of reality, action and humor. The film interweaves several thematic elements, bringing different threads together. The relationships between the characters have pop and sizzle to them."

As played by Ford, Joe Gavilan is complex and multi-faceted, courageous, yet vulnerable, flexible at times, hard headed at others, very capable, but sometimes overwhelmed. Ford approached him as a "man who's better at work than he is at life. He's living on the edge, drinking a bit too much, staying up too late and in pretty desperate circumstances. He's got several hundred dollars worth of dry cleaning in hock. And to top it off, he's being investigated by his own department at the same time as he's on a major homicide investigation."

The character of K.C. Calden is Gavilan's worst nightmare, a young detective who seems to be interested in everything but police work. Hartnett saw K.C. as an opportunity to create a fully rounded, reality-based character. While working as a cop, Calden busily pursues such avocations as teaching yoga and acting - though he keeps those sidelines secret. "Joe has no idea about K.C.'s alter ego as a yoga instructor," says Hartnett. "That part of him is really relaxed and cool, spiritual, though the women in his class often get in the way of his spiritual path."

As Shelton explained to his two leads, one of his intentions in Hollywood Homicide was to revisit the buddy/cop movie, "to serve the genre and, at the same time, bring something different to the dance. Joe and K.C. are both detectives, but they have completely different priorities. So you've got these multiple agendas going on while a major crime is being investigated and there's always some other distraction going on in the background. There's a madness, a sublime madness as the case and their lives start to spin out of control."

To prepare for their roles, Ford and Hartnett visited the Los Angeles Police Academy firing range and observed the inner workings of LAPD's Hollywood division headquarters. On set, they barraged Souza and the other police consultants with questions about procedure as well as more personal questions regarding the balance between pursuing criminals and maintaining a life that is separate from their work.

The generational and attitudinal differences between Gavilan and Calden are the focus of a great deal of comic friction in the film. "Our two characters don't really understand each other," says Hartnett, "and that's the source of a great deal of the humor."

Though Souza says that while there are elements of his personality in both the older and younger detective, Gavilan and Calden's stormy working relationship was definitely informed by his personal experiences. "When I was a young detective, I sometimes was impatient with older, less motivated detectives," he confesses. "Years later, as a senior investigator, I was sometimes put off by the younger, more impulsive guys. And I admit I wasn't always as patient with them as I could have been."

Beyond the selection of the film's two leading men, Shelton was careful to cast the other roles with an eye toward accurately capturing the variety and vibrancy of the L.A. experience. "One of the aspects I find fascinating about Los Angeles is its incredible mix of societies, cultures, values, races, nationalities, neighborhoods, dreams and schemes," says Shelton. "Somehow they manage to co-exist, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes not. The city's diversity is one of L.A.'s greatest strengths."

Shelton approached actress Lena Olin to portray Ruby, the successful, sexy radio psychic who gives personal and professional comfort to Ford's character. An Oscar® nominated actress, who currently appears on the popular "Alias" television series, Olin prepared for the offbeat role by "catching all the radio psychics and even talk show hosts - everyone from the pet psychic to Dr. Phil - just to get a feel for how they talk and address issues."

Bruce Greenwood, who convincingly portrayed President John F. Kennedy in the Cold War era drama Thirteen Days, portrays Bennie Macko, the head of Internal Affairs. He signed on because "The chance to work with good material and a strong cast under a talented director doesn't come along as often as you might think, and this project had all these ingredients," says Greenwood. "I've wanted to work with Harrison and Ron for a long time and to have the opportunity all at once was a real treat, I enjoyed every minute of it and I'd gladly go back for more."

Hollywood Homicide takes the audience behind the scenes in the music industry and one of its principal players is record company executive Antoine Sartain, played by actor Isaiah Washington, who describes his character as "dynamic, complicated, emotional, flawed and sometimes brilliant." Though his character could have been reduced to the standard bad guy, thanks to the film's precise writing and direction, Washington says he was able "to hit beats that haven't been seen before. Sartain is a man who pokes fun at himself, even when he's under extreme duress. At the same time, his version of tough love can be murder."

There's a reason why the villain is sometimes the most fascinating character in a film and for Washington it all comes down to the character's humanity. "Sartain's like J.R. Ewing on "Dallas," in that he really believes everything he does is right. That makes him both more human and more flawed."

The depth and detail that Shelton and Souza brought to even the secondary characters in Hollywood Homicide is what drew country singer turned actor Dwight Yoakam to the project. Yoakam portrays Leroy Wasley, an ex-cop who works for Sartain. "The comedy in the film is sometimes crazy and ridiculous, but it always comes from a real place," says Yoakam.

Lolita Davidovich was cast in the film's other key female role, Cleo. The actress, who has had starring roles in four previous Ron Shelton films, including her breakthrough performance in Blaze, describes Cleo as "a modern-day madam in Los Angeles, a city in which some consider it a worthy profession. She is in a rather desperate bind and needs Gavilan's help. And he needs hers. They are a match, similar in many ways, both strong, intelligent and possessing great survival instincts."

Oscar® winner Martin Landau plays the faded movie producer Jerry Duran, whose magnificent mansion may help Gavilan get out of his financial bind - if he can secure it as a real estate listing. The Hollywood veteran says he drew upon many real life producers in shaping his portrayal. "Duran's an extravagant Hollywood producer who has fallen on hard times," explains Landau. "His day has passed, but he still has attitude. I've been in Hollywood a long time, so I had countless role models for inspiration."

Among Ford and Hartnett's police cronies is Lou Diamond Phillips (Courage Under Fire). When Shelton asked to meet with the actor about playing a vice squad officer, he told him "there's just one little catch," Phillips recalls. "Could you please show up in a skirt, hose and heels, wig and makeup? The character's called Wanda." With the help of his wife, a makeup artist, Phillips was transformed, and drove to the audition in drag, "praying all the way that my car didn't break down on the freeway," he laughs, "though I did look pretty good if I do say so myself."

Since the world of popular music is a vital element in Hollywood Homicide, director Shelton instructed casting director Ed Johnston to scope the rock and hip-hop world for performers capable of handling straight acting roles. R&B legend Gladys Knight flew in from Las Vegas to audition for the role of Olivia Robidoux, the mother of K-RO (KURUPT) a young rap-song writer who is the only witness to the murders Gavilan and Calden are investigating. She says she was unsure whether she had a shot at the part, until Shelton said to her, "You're Gladys Knight! I should be auditioning for you!" After her reading, he hired her on the spot.

KURUPT, aka Ricardo Brown, had previously worked with Shelton on Dark Blue. "I do a lot of running in this one," says the popular rapper. "K-RO's got the killers and the cops chasing him. Worst part for me was being chased through the Venice canals. Other than a bath, I'm not a big fan of water. I don't even like standing in the rain," says KURUPT, who did many of his own stunts for the film.

Another vital role was filled by "Master P." The highly regarded rapper and entrepreneur was cast as Julius Armas, owner of the club where the big murder takes place. Master P, who also appeared in Dark Blue, says, "Julius is just another person to be interrogated until Gavilan learns I've got lots of extra cash and am in the market to buy a big mansion. Then I get some respect."

Motown great Smokey Robinson, makes his acting debut as a cabbie whose vehicle is commandeered by Gavilan in the film's climactic chase up Hollywood Boulevard. Frank Sinatra, Jr. who has only acted in one other film during his career, was cast as attorney Marty Wheeler, who simultaneously represents both buyer and seller in the biggest real estate prospect of Gavilan's part-time career. As Landau points out, this scenario is not that far-fetched in Hollywood. "It really happens in the movie business. The producer and the actor he's negotiating to hire can be represented by the same lawyer. I've never understood it, but I've seen it many times."

Other roles were filled by Andre Benjamin, aka Dre, of the innovative music group Outkast, and renowned rap music producer Kevin Law. The 504 Boyz, a rising rap group from Louisiana, play the musicians who are killed at the outset of the movie. The group is comprised of Aywood Johnson (Magic), Jason Thibeau (T-Bo), Michael Wilson (Krazy), and Darwin Turner (Choppa).

Shelton also managed to entice Hollywood veteran star Robert Wagner and former Monty Python founding member Eric Idle to make cameo appearances. Several of the usual suspects from Shelton's unofficial repertory company also make appearances, including Jamison Jones, Gregg Daniel, Eloy Casados, Dennis Burkley, Tom Todoroff, Will Utay, Darrell Foster and Fred Lewis.

Written by:
Ron Shelton
Robert Souza

Directed by:
Ron Shelton

Produced by:
Lou Pitt
Ron Shelton

Executive Produced by:
Joe Roth
David Lester

Cast:
Harrison Ford
Josh Hartnett
Lena Olin
Bruce Greenwood
Isaiah Washington
Lolita Davidovich
Keith David
Master P
with Dwight Yoakam
and Martin Landau

Budget
$75,000,000

Opening Weekend
$11,112,632 (USA 2,840 Screens)

Total
$30,207,785 (USA)

Sorry, but I had no time to create a special site for Hollywood Homicide like I did with K-19: The Widowmaker. Here are some links to read more abot the movie and enjoy watching it.

Official site (US) >>
Official site (Germany) >>
Harrison Ford Media >>
Harrison Ford Web >>
IMDb.com >>