The Hard Way (1991)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Boring

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

I tried a frog dog once. It wasn't from a place that sold them as such though, I bought the hot dog and fries separately and then mixed them and added the ketchup and mustard just like Moss did. OK, but messy. The scene where they're eating the frog dogs (with little frog croaking sounds being heard) must've taken numerous takes for them to have gotten it right without making the biggest mess. When I ate mine, it took me 17 takes to get it right, just kidding (those who seen the movie got that). I actually didn't care too much for Nick Lang (Michael J Fox) at the start of the film with him acting so bratty and spoiled at his Hollywood mansion to where it was hard to watch him. He then makes a quick transition to little suck up when he latches himself on to Moss (James Woods) at the New York police station. Part of me understands Moss' annoyance. I like the scene with Moss protesting his having to be with Lang ("not if you tied my tongue to your tailpipe and drove me 80 miles an hour naked across a field of broken glass!!"). And for some reason Moss' boss thinks Lang is the greatest (it almost looked like for a moment Moss' boss was gonna side with Moss with the "cheese ball" comment, but then quickly jumped back to loving Lang). I like when Moss sarcastically says "yes sir!" when he sees that his boss is going as far as to wearing a Nick Lang t shirt. The party crasher is a nice touch for the killer that Moss is after, a villain who does his killings at nightclubs and who likes challenges so much that he'll invite the police first to watch his next killing, and then he'll still end up getting away. Moss doesn't want to be taken off the party crasher case, especially to deal with an annoying a** kisser who is practically in love with him. I like the scene where Moss is crying to a (possible accomplice to the crasher) gun dealer about how he wants to get rid of Lang, and I liked the smart*** comments he made to the dealer's fat body guard ("you may wanna try skipping a meal sometimes, somewhere there's a small country going hungry"). I also liked the setup that Moss and his buddies from the station created in order to try to get rid of Lang (since Lang so badly wanted to know what it felt like to have killed an innocent bystander thought to have been a criminal, and then when Lang samples the feeling he quickly changed his mind about wanting it). Lang was just such a wannabe punk badass to where he was so ready to jump into crazy situations without even half reflecting what they really meant. All just to get a role in a movie that didn't have a g*****m roman numeral in the title. Just the way Lang looked at the whole thing like an exciting game (just look at the look on Lang's face the first time he pulls a badge out in front of some bad guys and says "NYPD", like a kid in a candy store). I liked the potential girlfriend of Moss (Annabelle Sciorra) who at one point actually believes Lang is a better cop than Moss (good thing she never saw his rubber gun. Lol). Also amusing is a scene in Moss' apartment when Lang, grossly against Moss' will, goes to stay with him (who initially says over the idea of Lang staying with him "maybe when my ***hole learns to chew gum"). Lang sees his billboard across the street, then is told by Moss "good, you'll be sleeping close to the one you love". The way Lang is so attached to and so fond of Moss, to where he tells him things like "I've counted, you have 17 different facial expressions" and "you're the greatest, you're a heavyweight, you're the "Yoda" among cops". I mean would you want someone you never previously met gluing themselves on to you and telling you those things? Even if they were doing it for a movie role? I still like some of Moss' lines, such as his comments to a reporter about the party crasher, "when his luck runs out, I'm gonna be on him like a bum on a bologna sandwich". And Moss'l to Lang "we live this job. It's something we are, not something we do. Whenever we pull someone over, we know we may have to kill someone, or be killed ourselves". Moss' lieutenant position on the force though never shows any signs of him ever doing any traffic duty and pulling anyone over. Still it was a good, interesting movie overall.

Buddy cop movies got a bad reputation coming out of the 1980s. It's not entirely undeserved because there were so many bad ones, but there were so many bad ones made because it's a formula that can be endlessly tweaked to produce some really entertaining flicks. There's no better example of that than The Hard Way, which switches around a few ingredients to create one of the better and funnier buddy cop duos you'll ever see. Sadly, that dynamic is undone by the extended, self-negating conclusion of this film. This is a story about "X" that becomes so completely "not X" at the end, it's hard to believe.Lieutenant John Moss (James Woods) is a New York City detective on the trail of an insane killer known as the Party Crasher (Stephen Lang). Moss is also one of the most seething, irritated men in the world, something that's not at all helped when movie star Nick Lang (Michael J. Fox) decides Moss is exactly the sort of example he needs to follow to land a coveted dramatic role. After he gets banged up while trying to apprehend the Party Crasher, Moss is assigned to shepherd Lang around town and show him what a real cop's life is like. Well, Moss decides he's not going to let this pampered Hollywood pretender get in the way of his investigation and Lang decides he's not going to let Moss barrage of indifference and rage keep him from getting the inspiration he needs. Throw in Moss' sort-of girlfriend (Anabella Sciorra) who finds Moss shutting her out, while his new "partner" is more like the kind of man she wants, and you've got the basics of The Hard Way.While director John Badham does a nice job creating the street life of New York on screen and Stephen Lang and Anabella Sciorra are very good in their by-the-numbers roles, there's no question that it's Woods and Fox who make this movie worth watching. Their scenes together are outstanding, with Woods playing up the rawness of reality as much as he can and Fox perfectly projecting the sheltered attitude and experience of the rich and famous. Making it even more enjoyable are how different facets of that relationship are suggested or referenced. On the one hand, Moss' closed off and solitary nature represents a sort of integrity against the prying, voracious culture embodied by Lang's attention. Lang essentially wants to steal parts of Moss' personality and existence for his own use and Moss bristles at that. On the other hand, Moss' refusal to let people into his life is also portrayed as a sort of selfish, self-destructive quality that pales in comparison to Lang's more open and expressive nature. For all of Lang's pretensions, he is in many ways a more functional human being than Moss. Combine that sort of nuance with the crackerjack performances of Woods and Fox and the first, say, two-thirds of The Hard Way is a very good film.Unfortunately, that last third founders very badly. The contrast between Moss' supposed real world and the fakeness of Hollywood is the animating concept of just about everything in The Hard Way. But Moss isn't a real cop and he doesn't live a real cop's life. It's a Hollywood version that is both sanitized and more exciting than the real thing. So, the story is built on a contrast that the filmmakers either can't or don't want to sustain. The result is this motion picture has three successive endings that are each more exaggerated and more Hollywood-like than the one before. It eventually concludes with Moss and Lang fighting the Party Crasher atop a giant recreation of Lang's head on a billboard over Times Square. It is a scene as over-the-top and ridiculous as any of the scenes from Nick Lang's movies that are mocked throughout this film.There's nothing all that wrong with the triple-ending of The Hard Way. It just clashes so starkly and severely with the tone and intention of the rest. Imagine Schindler's List ending with the "Springtime for Hitler" musical number from The Producers. And although Fox is great in his own right, the role of Nick Lang cries out for an actual 80s action hero to spoof his own image, instead of a comedic actor trying to create the same impression.The Hard Way is one of those motion pictures that just goes wrong and the more you love it at the start, the more disappointed you'll be at the finish. The good is good enough to make it work a look, as long as you don't let your hopes get too high.

Good action-comedy from veteran director John Badham, a man who usually delivers. James Woods and Michael J. Fox are in good form as angry cop and spoiled movie star respectively.Nick Lang (Fox) decides he wants to do serious movie roles, and works side by side with cop Woods to try and get a feel for life as a New York cop. The pair work very well together (surprisingly), and there are some genuinely funny moments, including some great one-liners and sarcastic humour from James Woods."The Hard Way" never gets too serious, and is good, if light, entertainment.Friday, June 28, 1991 - Greater Union Melbourne

The Hard Way is an entertaining Cop Comedy that was mentioned on the Simpsons season 5 Episode Homer and Apu. James Woods looks convincing as a tough New York City Police Lieutenant. There is a scene in the film involving heights and a billboard with the picture of Michael J Fox on it. President Jack Kennedys artificial Intelligence computer suggested or ordered that I write about the big Crunch. He is either talking about my Fathers Chinese Intelligence nickname or Closed Universes. As I said before, there is dark matter at the outside of our universe left over from previous big bangs that slows expanding matter and causes a big crunch eventually. The Care Rank Ki Aliens, Et Aliens created by the Care Rank Ki, and Humans Created by the Care Rank Ki and Et Aliens have been through several big bangs and big crunches with their moonfleets and movable planets and are tens of billions of years old at least. Thanks to Faster than light subatomic particles called rollys that travel back through time, Our Creators know the future at least thousands of years ahead of time using either particle accelerators, tokamak fusion reactors or breeder fission reactors or Candu fission reactors.The other movies of Michael J Fox and James Woods are worth watching as well.