FRIDAY , FEBRUARY 2, 1990... By Frank Lovece ‘Special to The Record Geez, is it summer already? I thought high-concept cartoony movies only came out between June and August. But it’s only February, and here’s an odd-cou- ple buddy movie — except one of the buddies is a ghost. Wow! We're in for some wackiness now! Actually, it’s trouble we're in for when normally adroit British ac- tor Bob Hoskins can’t decide which country’s accent to give his character, a sleazy, cholesterol- clogged Los Angeles vice cop named Jack Moony. ‘The strangeness mounts when Moony delivers a ridiculously overwritten racial tirade, then spies black attorney Napoleon Stone (Denzel Washington), does a standard movie U-turn-in-busy- intersection-with-car-horns, and eventually starts blasting his gun at the car of the unarmed Stone, like Elmer Fudd after Bugs Bun- ny. ‘And this is all in the first five minutes. Denzel Washington and Bob Hoskins co-star in “Heart Condition ”. ‘These shenanigans land Moony only a temporary suspension, but that’s enough to induce a near-fa- tal heart attack. And, wouldn’t you know, Stone is slain that very eve- ning and. his heart transplanted into nemesis Moony. Months lat- er, when Moony is a desk sergeant, Stone's ghost seeks Moony’s help because, as the ghost explains, “I *THE RECORD. )'S: didn’t die, I was murdered.” You have to ask yourself what kind of director would allow such inanities to survive from script to screen. The answer, of course, is a writer-director — feature-film novice James D. Parriott. Happily, leading lady Chloe Webb manages to transcend Par- riott’s tedium. As call-girl Crystal Gerrity, the object of Moony’s love and Stone's desire, Webb is heart- breakingly sad and real. Roger E. Mosley, as Moony’s police superior, and Ja'net Dubois, as Stone’s grieving mother, also bring sharp, telling resonances to the party. Unfortunately, there’s a pompous bore in the corner, and he’s written and directed this thing.