Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Rush Hour

Rush Hour (1998)

Runtime: 98 minutes

Directed by: Brett Ratner

Starring: Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Ken Leung, Tom Wilkinson, Tzi Ma

From: New Line Cinema

Because there are at least talks of Rush Hour 4 possibly being a thing... that is news from just a few days ago. That could just be vaporware and I know senior citizen Jackie can't do too much now (nor should he), yet I might as well revisit something I've seen a few times, although not in a long while.

It is easy to note the demerits of the film and it isn't even my favorite American film that Jackie has done. Him only having a few action scenes isn't that bad as he was already in his 40's by that point and already had a body beat to hell. At least the action we do get is exciting. However, a little of Chris Tucker does go a long way and some of his schtick has aged poorly. Then there's a rather cliched story and Brett Ratner as a human being isn't great.

However, I can't say that he's a bad director; sure, it's unspectacular and at best workman-like but that doesn't ruin the movie. It's an easy watch and at least the cliches are presented well-enough where I say this was a good time.... even if it's the basics such as “a supporting character struggles to do a difficult task in one scene so of course they'll have to do that same task to try and save the day at the end”. The way films are nowadays, I am relieved to see such basic tenants of storytelling. Not a surprise that something so digestible even then helped make Chan quite famous in America after all the attempts in the past had failed to do so.

Overall, it's a movie that still entertains me due to its fun duo that blended together pretty well here and still provides enough laughs-no matter how silly it is at times-for me to grant this a nice rating.

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