"Frog Dog"

The Hard Way (1991)
**1/2
Dir: John Badham
Starring: Michael J. Fox, James Woods, Annabella Sciorra, Stephen Lang
MPAA: R

Remember everything I said about why Midnight Run worked so well? Well, this isn't that. 

Michael J. Fox is Nick Lang, a pampered Hollywood star who wants to shadow hardened cop John Moss (James Woods, clearly having fun) to prepare for a more serious role than the untouchable superhero adventurer he became famous for playing. Moss is on the trail of The Party Crasher (professional crazy person Stephen Lang), a killer with a fondness for taunting cops.

Fox is likable and has decent chemistry with Woods, but it's difficult to buy him as the Tom Cruise-style pretty boy that he's playing. There are a few funny moments (and Penny Marshall is great in a tiny role as his exasperated manager), but the movie can't seem to figure out if it wants to be a comedic spoof of Hollywood clichés or generic buddy action movie #8347, so it never manages to fully become either one.

Annabella Sciorra has a fairly thankless role as Moss's girlfriend who goes to Lang for relationship advice, thinking he knows Moss better than anybody else. Sciorra has a nice easy chemistry with Fox, but very little with Woods which also doesn't help the case that the movie is trying to present. 

Stephen Lang is given very little to do as the villain (except one memorably oddball moment that finds him at home in one of those green facial mud-masks, chewing bubble gum and yelling at a clip of Moss on his computer), without enough dialogue or interaction with Moss to feel like a credible threat (or even, you know, a human character).

While not a bad movie, it's not easy to recommend when there are so many great overlooked action-comedies out there like Running Scared or Midnight Run (maybe the secret is just to have the word "run" somewhere in your title). Don't go out of your way to see it, but if you stumble upon it on late-night cable, you could do worse.