February 2, 1990 | Jack Mooney (Bob Hoskins) is an overweight, openly racist LA cop who lives on bourbon and “greaseburgers,” and looks like something the cat dragged in, had second thoughts about and dragged back out again.
Napoleon Stone (Denzel Washington) is a slick, fashionably slim lawyer who travels in the right circles, dines in the best restaurants and, quite often, defends the worst criminals. And if all that weren’t enough to steam Mooney, consider this: Stone is black, and proud of it.
Naturally, in the grand tradition of buddy-buddy movies, Mooney and Stone are destined to begin a beautiful friendship. Just how they go about this, however, is one of the more untraditional things about Heart Condition, a surprisingly engaging action-comedy-fantasy that places greater emphasis on high-caliber acting than rapid-fire shootouts.
Writer-director James D. Parriott, a TV veteran making his feature film debut, doesn’t do anything new, exactly. But he does what he does with slightly more skill, and much more attention to character detail, than other filmmakers who have recently toiled in the slam-bang, buddy-buddy genre.
At first, the only thing Mooney and Stone have in common is Crystal Gerrity (Chloe Webb), a streetwalker who has elevated herself to high-priced call girl, even though she’d rather be a photographer. She used to live with Mooney, who gave her a home but little encouragement. Then she moved on to Stone, who treated her more seriously, or at least as seriously as his several other short-term dalliances. Mooney still carries a torch for Crystal, though he would probably die before admitting it. Stone, too, is in love with Crystal, but he dies before realizing it.
Fortuitously, Stone is killed in an auto mishap on the very same night that Mooney has a near-fatal heart attack. So Mooney gets a heart transplant, from the last man on earth that, under normal circumstances, he would want to get anything.
This is what, in Hollywood, is known as a high concept.
The plot gets even more complicated, and the concept gets ever higher, when Stone returns as a ghost, every bit as cocksure and GQ-sleek as he was while alive. Only Mooney can see or hear him, and their conversations appear pretty one-sided to most bystanders. Of course, Mooney would rather be left alone, and not just because he looks absurd — or, worse, insane — when he’s snarling at his invisible companion. But Stone insists on sticking around, until Mooney agrees to find his killers.
Try to imagine a cross between Topper and In the Heat of the Night, and you will have at least a vague idea of what to expect from Heart Condition. The murder-mystery plot isn’t terribly mysterious, since we know from the start who’s responsible for Stone’s death. But the relationship between Mooney and Stone has an unexpectedly compelling edge, as the characters, and the actors who portray them, are given ample room to live, breathe, fight and reconcile. To pay Hoskins and Washington the highest possible compliment: They bring a believable emotional complexity to a totally unbelievable premise.
Hoskins, all bulldog bluster and wary vulnerability, isn’t afraid to come across as a thug in the opening scenes, and doesn’t appear to be in any great hurry to reform as the plot unfolds. Washington, fresh from his triumph in Glory, is suitably sleek and smart as Stone, and taunts his co-star with an amusingly mischievous glee. (“Racial prejudice I can understand — but ghost prejudice is something new!”) Like Hoskins, though, Washington goes beneath the surface, and dredges up some very persuasive pain and anger.
There’s a major plot twist in the film’s final third, as Mooney and Stone discover just how much the lawyer meant to Crystal. It’s a scene that brings out the best in the two actors. And to her great credit, Chloe Webb, who is very good as the sad-eyed Crystal, makes her own mark in the same scene.
A lot of Heart Condition is formula stuff. There’s a sleazy drugs-and-sex scandal to propel the plot, a gruff police captain to antagonize our heroes, and a climactic shootout that ends with the right people shot. Still, even when the movie dashes through familiar territory, there usually is a clever line or two to keep things interesting. At one point, Stone brings Mooney to a bowling alley where the clientele is black, and Mooney is frankly amazed. “I didn’t know you people did this,” he says with a sarcastic snarl. “Yeah,” Stone replies, matching Mooney’s tone. “We swim, too.”
