'Hit and Runway' a buddy movie
By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Editor
R (for strong language, sexuality) 105 minutes
By design, "Hit and Runway," opening today, is a buddy movie, an odd-couple comedy, a love story. But it smartly defies categorization.
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"Hit and Runway"
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The title refers to an imagined screenplay-movie by a fumbling writer, who envisions a fashion model as a cop hero.
The tale involves Alex Andero (played by Michael Parducci), an Italian dreamer who lives beneath the family's Greenwich Village cafe, hungry to make it big as a Hollywood screenwriter. Unable to deliver alone a script that would put him in the big time, he partners with Elliot Springer (portrayed by Peter Jacobson), a gay, Jewish playwright with few social skills. Elliot has a liking for a waiter at the restaurant, Joey (enacted by "Dawson Creek" cutie Kerr Smith), who happens to be a struggling actor. That's the buddy/odd couple element.
"Hit and Runway" breaks stereotypes about gays, male bonding and even religion. The script, by Christopher Livingston and Jaffe Cohen, won Best Screenplay laurels at the 1999 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, and Best Screenplay at the 1999 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen.
Its strength is its resourceful, fresh take on familiar turf. All characters, including secondary writer wannabes, are in the midst of an identity crisis, and the movie explores both sexual fidelity and integrity.
"I have no idea who I am," Alex says at one point, and indeed, he's a floater, a drifter, a confused collaborator who reads "Four Films by Woody Allen" and "Groucho and Me" for inspiration.
Elliot, who looks and speaks like Woody Allen, learns a lot about himself and his inherent talent by working with Alex in his cramped quarters. The give-and-take (nonsexual, since Alex declares his straightness early on, though they do fall asleep together), loaded with outrageous laughs, makes you wonder if Matt Damon and Ben Affleck had similar highs and lows in collaborating on their Oscar-winning "Good Will Hunting." Maybe not, but "Hit and Runway" delivers an entertaining glimpse at one awkward team's advances toward success, even with an ethical indiscretion along the way.
And the love story? There are a few pretzels along the way that ultimately are sorted out.
• For other movie openings and reviews, see the TGIF section in today's Advertiser.
