Chan Sticks in Second Gear

by Mick Jones

Since boobing horribly with Home Alone 3, the bureaucrats in charge of selecting Hollywood movies for release in China have hit a hot streak of common sense. In the wake of Saving Private Ryan, this month sees the release of Rush Hour, a double whammy combining smash-hit credentials with arguably the world's biggest movie star -- Hong Kong's Jackie Chan.

Rush Hour was Chan's third try at making it big in the States, and the gossips said another bomb would mean a one-way ticket home. His odd-couple double act with motor-mouthed Chris Tucker, however, carried the movie to US$150 million in receipts, so we can surely expect more of the same before too long.

Chan plays Hong Kong detective John Lee, who opens the movie by busting mysterious crime lord Juntao's gang as a going-away present to his boss, who is leaving to become head of China's consulate in Los Angeles. Miffed at the loss of his art collection, Juntao later kidnaps the boss's daughter and demands US$50 million in ransom. If you can suspend disbelief sufficiently not to wonder where a Chinese diplomat gets US$50 million to pay off kidnappers, the rest of the film's amateurish plotting shouldn't concern you.

Unwilling to leave matters in the hands of the FBI, which as usual seems staffed exclusively by overweight buffoons, the distraught father summons Chan to LA, where he teams up with Tucker's misfit LAPD cop, Sergeant James Carter, to solve the case by any means necessary.

Sergeant Carter is right from the bottom of the cliché barrel -- only works alone; ignores the rules; tragic family story to facilitate male bonding later in movie -- and Tucker's Funny Black Man routine will either have you laughing uproariously or cringing under your seat. But Rush Hour does have a pleasingly different take on the cop-buddy movie, in that both of the heroes are outsiders. Without one partner having roots in middle-class America, we are spared much of the cloying sentimentality that habitually overtakes these films (Lethal Weapon springs to mind).

Unfortunately for long-standing Chan fans, however, all the time given to wringing humor out of this relationship leaves insufficient space for Jackie to do what he does best. Director Brett Ratner handles the action scenes competently enough, but other than a late sequence (straight out of Tom and Jerry) where Chan tries to protect a series of priceless porcelains while battling the bad guys, they lack the sustained slapstick exuberance of his best work.

On the plus side, those new to Jackie Chan may discover enough of his sweet moves and cartoonish humor to make them want more. Like a comic James Cagney, he is one of those rare actors whose grace in action is worth the price of admission alone. The man is a treasure, and hopefully Rush Hour's success will lead him on to better things in Hollywood.