Rating of
3/4
Ohhhh, What a Rush -- Hour
The M.O.W. - wrote on 08/02/08
After stopping an antiques racket headed by the most powerful crime lord in Southeastern Asia, Hong Kong Police "Detective Inspector Lee" (Jackie Chan) is asked by Chinese "Consul Han" (Tzi Ma) to come to America to find his kidnapped daughter, "Soo Yung" (Julia Hsu), much to the distain of the FBI agents on the case.
Thinking that they don't need help to find the girl, kidnapped by the one who masterminded the racket "Lee" broke-up, the FBI goes to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to have one of their officers "babysit" "Lee" as they go after the villain on their own. The police chief assigns "Detective James Carter" (Chris Tucker), who believes he is too good at his job to even have a partner to back him up on the LA streets. The fact is, his ego needs to be deflated a bit.
It is apparent from the start that the two don't like the situation they have been thrust into by the FBI, but slowly become friends as the movie movies along. The two teach one another about each other's ways and culture, making them a stronger team than the FBI agents assigned to the case. It also turns them into good friends, which is proven when "Lee" is sent back home, and "Carter" sneaks onto it and convinces "Lee" to get off the airplane so they can finish what they started and find the child.
The one thing a Chan movie is known for is the amazing action sequences and the crazy high-risk stunts that Chan will frequently perform himself without any safety equipment, which doesn't make him too popular with insurance companies issuing policies to cover the films he's involved with. It is just incredible how fast the fight scenes, and how psychotic the stunts Chan performs himself are. It is so hard to believe that the blooper reels put at the end of his films showing all the mistakes he and the stuntmen he's trained aren't longer than the films themselves.
The one thing that works best, next to the fights and stunts, is the on-screen team of Tucker and Chan. Their comedic timing is as near perfect as you can get. It is also obvious that Tucker took a lot of time to train for the fight scenes, even though it is obvious that the fight stuntmen slow down quite a bit when they switch over to working with him than they do with Chan.
I don't like in movies, being a grandson of a now deceased police officer, is how any law enforcement agency is depicted when the organization is in a supporting role like in this one. There is no way any law agency would not welcome any outside help in solving a case. They might think they can solve the case on their own in real life, but they would never hire a person to "babysit" an outsider who is trying to solve the same case. It would never be the outsider solving the case on his own, it would be a team effort despite the headbutting going on at headquarters between the two.
Despite that this movie follows the same formula as many buddy cop movies of the past and the future, this will give you lots of high-flying action with very good comic bits thrown in from time-to-time.
