director
Brett Ratner
screenwriters
Jim Kouf
Ross LaManna
story by
Ross LaManna
producers
Roger Birnbaum
Jonathan Glickman
Artur Sarkissian
cinematographer
Adam Greenberg
music
Lalo Schifrin
editor
Mark Helfrich
cast
Jackie Chan (Lee)
Chris Tucker (Carter)
Elizabeth Peña (Tania Johnson)
Tom Wilkinson (Thomas Griffin)
Julia Hsu (Soo Yung)
Chris Penn (Clive Cod)
Philip Baker Hall (Capt. William Diel)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 97m
u.s.
release: 9/18/98
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
see also:
- operation
condor
- rumble in the bronx
- shanghai
knights
- shanghai noon
- supercop
other brett
ratner films
reviewed on this website:
- red dragon
- x-men: the
last stand
|
The
best part of Rush Hour is the end credits, which, like
all Jackie Chan movies, show us the outtakes of Chan when his
stunts go wrong. These blooper reels, which sometimes show Chan
really hurting himself, give you a greater admiration of Chan
as a highly skilled human being who has to sweat and work to
do this stuff (because the sweat doesn't show in the movie proper).
But the outtakes this time also show Chris Tucker, Chan's onscreen
partner, who has nothing especially challenging to do except
remember how to say "Chelsea Clinton."
Rush Hour -- the title has no particular relevance to
the plot -- is New Line's rather disheartening attempt to help
out Jackie Chan in America, probably the only country in the
world where this international legend has been a two-hit wonder
(Rumble in the Bronx and Supercop). His last few movies have
opened and closed here pretty abruptly, so Chris Tucker -- an
unaccountably popular "comedian" whose previous star
vehicle, Money Talks, was successful -- has been brought
in to revive Chan's American career, one assumes. How sad that
the great Chan is presumed to need this kind of dumbed-down buddy
movie.
The "plot" is familiar from about a million bad movies.
A Chinese consul's little daughter is kidnapped. Chan, a detective,
is sent from China to L.A. to work on the case. But the FBI takes
over and assigns Tucker, an L.A. cop, to make sure Chan doesn't
get involved. This needlessly complicated premise, which doesn't
make sense anyway, should have been dropped. This is a cop-buddy
movie in the tradition of 48 HRS and Lethal Weapon,
and no amount of variation will change that -- especially since
Chan and Tucker end up working together as if they were
officially on the case.
The comparison to 48 HRS has a strange twist here. In
48 HRS, Nick Nolte's racist cop developed a grudging admiration
for Eddie Murphy's convict; here, in a neat reversal, it's Tucker
who starts out racist. The gibes aren't nearly as bad here as
they were in Lethal Weapon 4, but
I still felt offended for Chan, who has to listen to Tucker's
witless spouting off. (Tucker to Chan, outside a Chinese restaurant:
"Just like home, huh? Stay out here. Maybe you'll see someone
you know.") Of course, Tucker learns to respect Chan, especially
when he gets a load of Chan's moves.
Those moves, by the way, would've been better served by a director
who knows how to film them. Brett Ratner, who also directed Money
Talks, is no Stanley Tong -- a lot of the action is shot
too close in and ruined by quick cutting. Jackie Chan doesn't
need quick cutting -- he's quick enough. Chan's physical
genius manages to come through anyway, though the only bit of
comic-brutal choreography that's really allowed to build, develop,
and point towards a pay-off is a late sequence in which Chan
fends off several thugs while trying to save a variety of priceless
Chinese antiques from falling over.
Chris Tucker has a handful of amusing moments, but mostly his
appeal continues to elude me. His voice gets on my nerves, and
generally he's dead weight on his co-star and the movie. It's
a measure of Tucker's zero charisma that when Chan or the criminally
underused Elizabeth Peña show exasperation with him, you
can relate more to them than you ever do to him. Chris Tucker
may be able to open these low-ambition, mid-level New Line movies,
but he's a very one-note performer -- he's the black Pauly Shore.
Yet Jackie Chan is stuck in a movie with him, presumably because
Tucker will attract Americans and Chan no longer will. If this
is what it takes to keep America interested in Chan, America
doesn't deserve him. |