Review of Rush Hour (1941) by David P — 06 Nov 2014

Chris Tucker's genius is the spotlight of the Master Arts of Comedy, here, and Rush Hour is a buddy-cop comedy movie that stays true to it's genre and proves to be a fine buddy-cop movie of 1998. Jackie Chan is back in the Fine Arts of Kung Fu and delivers his usual unique efforts in that style of self-defence.

This is a fairly good movie that outweighs the likes of contenders like 'Tango & Cash' the hugely disappointing cop movie from the late 80s, starring Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell, in the leading roles. Rush Hour carefully varies the bad acting from Tango & Cash - especially the awful acting from Stallone - and Tucker's witticism and ridiculous, but plausible, humour is definitively more laughable in Rush Hour than Russell in Tango & Cash. In comparison to David Ayer's 'End of Watch', Rush Hour was directed and acted with less emotion, as the emotion level in 'End of Watch' is incredibly higher. The next buddy-cop movie I plan to watch some day is 'Lethal Weapon' starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover - something's promising me it'll be a worth watch, as it stars two of the most famous actors in Hollywood, and as it launched a long running, successful franchise of three sequels. At least some cool Hollywood action movies are making great franchises.

I think Rush Hour should have had a more likeable villain and one more developed of personality and back story, because the villain, here, played by Ken Leung, appears on the screen several times as a human prop for Jackie Chan to fight, but that's all, really, he's at the centre of a plot, in which he's absent throughout most of the time.

The smart humour Kicks in and Chris Tucker is the man who pulled that off: he offers the gags and Jackie Chan offers the stunts! It's cool in many ways as a rookie cop and a foreign kung fu artist adds the perfect mix to a buddy-cop comedy action movie. It reminds me of the same mix used in the comedy Western: 'Shanghai Noon', in which Jackie plays a guard in the Chinese Imperial Army and Owen Wilson steps in to play a jerk-type cowboy!

The screenplay may not live up to its potentials, but the main attraction is basically the comedy style and Jackie Chan's presence of throwing in a few stunts, and trying to avoid bruises or cuts in the process!