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Review by Susan Granger
1½ stars out of 4
Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker make like Mel Gibson and Danny
Glover in that they're a mis-matched, odd-couple partners in this cop
caper. Chan, as an ace Hong Kong detective, is big in the martial
arts, while Tucker's weapon-of-choice is his big, bad mouth.
Reluctantly paired with each other, they're assigned to rescue a
Chinese diplomat's 10 year-old daughter who has been kidnapped by
Asian thugs in Los Angeles. Screenwriters Jim Kouf and Ross LaManna,
along with director Brett Ratner, must have watched all the "Lethal
Weapon" pictures repeatedly because there's little that's original
here, except perhaps some Asian ethnic cracks like "I been lookin' for
your sweet-and-sour chicken ass!" Poor Jackie Chan, a Buster
Keaton-like hero whose screen career once literally went down the
tube, gets only one significant scene in which he fights off a group
of attackers while trying to prop up a fragile, antique vase. "Fifteen
years ago, I really give up the American market," he says, recalling
playing a racecar driver in "Cannonball Run." "At that time, I don't
think the audience really accept me, this kind of fighting, this kind
of comedy, so I went back to Asia, making my Asian films. Now, I give
Hollywood another chance." Chan's big beef with studio movie-making is
their caution with dangerous stunts. "They waste two hours to check
all the things. If I get hurt, the company really scared I'm suing
it." On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Rush Hour" is a
cliche-filled, copy-cat 4. The funniest bits are the blooper out-takes
at its conclusion but, when I saw it, not that many people stayed in
the theater long enough to laugh.
Copyright © 2000 Susan Granger
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out of 4
