The Hard Way 1991, Rated R Universal

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Starring Michael J. Fox, James Woods.

To me, the action-comedy label means that a movie has too little action to be consider a full-fledged action movie, and too little comedy to be considered a hard hitting comedy. Action-comedy to me suggests Hudson Hawk and carries with it a certain negative connotation.

For this reason, I look at The Hard Way not as an action comedy, but as a comedy set in the investigation of a serial killer. Sounds hard to pass up, doesn't it? Michael J. Fox and James Woods star in this film, and play their parts wonderfully. Fox is the spoiled Hollywood actor who, in an effort to land a serious acting role, travels to New York City to team up with Woods' bitter cop so he can do some research on what it's like to be a policeman.

Woods isn't particularly thrilled about this and doesn't want Fox with him, near him, or even in the same borough as him. All he wants to do is catch the demented guy who keeps killing more New Yorkers. Woods is vocal about this, both to his captain, who is an ardent Fox fan, and Fox, who is probably a bigger fan of himself than the captain is.

Woods' facial expressions through out the movie are priceless. He takes curling your lip in disgust, the slight shift of your eyes and the slow turn of your head to precision art forms. Fox is good, but Woods is excellent. When the two actors were on screen together, I looked at Fox's character as just that, a character in a movie portrayed by Alex Keaton, and Woods as John Moss, the cop he plays. I have no trouble believing that he actually is John Moss.

Woods always manages to finds roles that are tailored to his slow, but very intense, style of acting--Cop is a good example of this--and just dives in the production with everything he's got. Woods swears that off camera he's just another average guy, like you or me, providing of course that you are a guy, but with the performances he gives, it's no wonder that people stray away from him on the street, and don't approach him while he's eating at restaurants.

The Hard Way knows what it wants to accomplish and sets about reaching that goal. It doesn't veer off on any tangents, there aren't any tacked on sub-plots that the director, John Badham, felt were necessary, and the relationship and camaraderie between Woods and Fox is genuinely funny. The Hard Way, no matter what type of movies you prefer, is a film that definitely merits consideration at the video store.