Not Coming to a Theater Near You

The Hard Way / USA / 1991

Director John Badham came up the old fashioned way, paying his dues with a decade behind the camera on a variety of TV dramas and cop shows. And the past few years seem to have signalled a return home- his last theatrical feature was the bizarre and largely forgotten Paul Hogan vehicle Floating Away, since then it’s been TV movies all the way, this hard grafting one time A-lister put out to pasture. Which is a shame, because Badham’s career as director yielded one genuine classic- Saturday Night Fever- and a fistful of enjoyable, fairly low rent gems: WarGames, Short Circuit, Stakeout and this, a thoroughly entertaining comedy thriller from the days when such things seemed ten a penny.

The script is smart and the action, while overblown, is pretty riveting. But, as is often the case with these mid- budget Hollywood efforts, it’s the casting that seals the deal. James Woods displays surprising comic timing, Michael J. Fox mugs shamelessly but somehow manages to remain loveable. Annabella Sciorra, Delroy Lindo and Luis Guzman provide dependable support (has Guzman actually aged at all in the past two decades?), and we get early sightings of Christina Ricci and, of course, Ladies Love Cool James hamming it up gleefully in his first Hollywood role. The baddy is a letdown- Stephen Lang overacts wildly as the forgettable Party Crasher- but there’s so much going on that it hardly seems to matter.

by Tom Huddleston | Source: ITV4
10 Oct 2006 11:23 AM | Comments (1)

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1. Rumsey / 10 October 2006 / 10:06 AM / URL

   has Guzman actually aged at all in the past two decades?

   Having caught part of Carlito’s Way this weekend, I’m inclined to think not.