Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Mr-Fusion There's something different about "The Hard Way", something in its approach to a well-worn genre. Buddy cop movies were all over the place back then, and here's another one to throw on the pile. But having a pampered actor hang around a disgruntled cop offers an opportunity for Hollywood satire, which freshens up the mismatched partners angle. James Woods tends to be hit-or-miss for me, but he's ideal in such a hothead role. And wired Michael J. Fox provides a great foil. The whole thing works; the script's focused, the action's energetic and it always has that meta feel to it.7/10

Scott LeBrun The buddy-cop action movie certainly has been a staple in cinema for a while now. And the makers of this film know that the success lies in a successful clash of well-defined personalities. That's the appeal of this long, loud, silly, over the top, but very fun slick picture from mainstream action specialist John Badham ("Stakeout", etc.). It's got some hilarious lines (the script is by Daniel Pyne and Lem Dobbs, based on a story by Dobbs and Michael Kozoll) perfectly delivered by its well cast stars.James Woods is John Moss, a hard charging, volatile NYC detective hot on the trail of utterly deranged serial killer The Party Crasher (Stephen Lang), who kills innocent children and lowlife criminals with equal fervor. The already ill-tempered Moss has his patience tested even further when he's ordered to chaperone a spoiled-brat Hollywood star, Nick Lang (Michael J. Fox), who wants to do research for a role he covets and has decided that Moss will provide the perfect inspiration.The high strung Woods and the endearingly annoying Fox are an ideal pairing; they're both perfectly cast. They're supported by a rich lineup of top character players. Annabella Sciorra is absolutely lovely as Moss' frustrated potential girlfriend. Lang is a riot as the unhinged villain; wait until you get a load of the kinds of things he does. Delroy Lindo is Moss' starstruck boss, and Luis Guzman, LL Cool J, Mary Mara and John Capodice play his colleagues. A young Christina Ricci is amusing as Sciorra's daughter. Penny Marshall has a fun cameo as Langs' agent.As Nick notices, Moss is a very quotable guy, such as when he's lecturing the naive Nick on what being a *real* cop is like. "We don't get 17 takes to get it right!" But it's also a hoot to see a pampered, naive person like Nick get plunged into the realities of life on the streets of NYC. Another of the highlights is when Nick insists on playing the part of Susan as he attempts to tell Moss what he's doing wrong with his lady.It all culminates in one of those great movie moments where our heroes are doing battle with the psycho on an enormous replication of Nick's head and hand, created to advertise his latest film vehicle.Highly recommended to action-comedy fans.Eight out of 10.

buddyboy28 You often hear stories about actors spending some time with the actual people who do the job that they're going to be portraying on screen. If a movie star is going to play a cop in a role, they might ride around with the police for a few days to get a sense of their traits and experiences. Well this comedy takes that concept to the extreme and plays it purely for laughs.Michael J.Fox plays an Hollywood,pampered movie star of Indiana Jones type action movies who is sick of been labelled as a family oriented actor and wants to play meatier roles. He plans on playing a cop in a gritty new film, and in order to do some research, he is teamed up with New York's angriest, most unsociable detective James Woods. But he's on the trail of a psychotic serial killer and doesn't intend to let Fox get in the way.The plot isn't important here. It's the hilarious banter and excellent chemistry between the two lead stars that makes the film so much fun, while director John Badham milks the concept for all it's worth. He plays around with the cop movie conventions and bites the hand that feeds him with lots of swipes at Hollywood, before the likes of Last Action Hero, Showtime, and Hollywood Homicide got in on the act.The production design is terrific throughout and is as good as you could hope for what is essentially just an action comedy. Badham clearly put a lot of thought into his locations. The New York city streets in the film are crowded, dirty, and gritty looking,to further contrast Fox's Beverley Hills lifestyle.The stunts are impressive, and as the film goes on, the action sequences become more and more over the top, which suits the film because it puts Fox and Woods into situations similar to Fox's character's movies. The mayhem climaxes with a fun homage to North By Northwest. A great action comedy,and Fox and Woods set this apart from the usual buddy cop movies from the 80's and 90's. Loved it.

Paul Andrews The Hard Way is set in New York where detective John Moss (James Woods) is on the case of a ruthless killer nicknamed the Party Crasher (Stephen Lang) who taunts police as shoots people dead, he phones the police & invites them to watch as he kills people. While chasing the Party Crasher detective Moss is injured & his boss Captain Brix (Delroy Lindo) takes him off the case in order to babysit rich Hollywood action film star Nick Lang (Michael J. Fox) who is researching a role as a cop poses as Moss' new partner, Moss is horrified at having Lang follow him around as he won't let the Party Crasher case go & drags Lang into it...Directed by John Badham this action comedy thriller is the second Badham flick I have seen in the space of twenty four hours, I didn't plan it that way but the other was Blue Thunder (1983) & having watched both for the first time I am struck that while they are both decent enough action thrillers neither are particularly great & both feel rather routine. Here in The Hard Way we have the whole mismatched cop partners scenario with average results, a popular but over-crowed genre at the time there are better examples that spring to mind such as Lethal Weapon (1987), Red Heat (1988) & Tango & Cash (1989) to name but three. The difference fans of the film will point to is that Lang is an action film star but for all intents & purposes The Hard Way plays out like a straight cop thriller with little in the way of depth. The two main character's of Moss & Lang are great & equally great performances by Woods & Fox carry the lightweight script & it's them who make this as watchable as it is, the interplay between the two is funny at times & the gradual warming of the character's towards each other works pretty well. However beyond a spirited couple of leads The Hard Way is routine & clichéd, there's the grumpy police captain, the bad guy with a personal vendetta against the hero, the veteran cop & his rookie partner, a love interest & a final confrontation to the death. The Hard Way is also very predictable in the way it unfolds, at over 110 minutes it's maybe a little long, Moss or any other NYPD cop doesn't seem to do any real police-work other than what he wants & the Party Crasher is given virtually no background or motivation other than the excuse he was killing criminals which gets explored with all of one line of dialogue.There are some funny moments here for sure but maybe not quite enough, Moss screeching through New York shouting profanity as everyone around him or the one to one in a bar with Lang where he pretends to be Moss' girlfriend is also a highlight but beyond the energy & goodwill brought to the film by the two leads (both character's & actor's) there's just not that much here as any sort of plot takes a back seat. While not particularly violent The Hard Way is full of profanity so if you have sensitive ears in that regard be prepared. The action is pretty good but there's not enough of it, there's a couple of car chases & stunts, an explosion at a petrol pump & the final confrontation above Times Square in New York which looks impressive but lacks excitement. Apparently James Woods had his own hairdresser on set at a cost of $6000 a week.Flopping at the box-office I would suggest the buddy buddy cop film had lost it's appeal somewhat & The Hard Way is a fairly routine example anyway. This has that big budget Hollywood look about it & looks nice enough. The acting by the two leads is great with the always excellent James Woods taking first prize, Fox is very good too while rapper LL Cool J has a small role as a cop.The Hard Way is a standard mismatched cop action thriller that is made watchable by great performances by it's leading actor's & some pretty funny moments & one-liners but story-wise this is less than average & there's certainly not enough plot here to fill 110 minutes.