Rush Hour
Chris Tucker is the living epitome of the Acquired Taste, utilizing a nattering, highly annoying style of speaking in a rapid fire cadence all while sounding like he’s doing a parody of Eddie Murphy making fun of Michael Jackson. When being put under the paces of a skilled, disciplined director, Tucker could blend into either an ensemble or a buddy movie format even if it was clear that he could never do what Murphy did and become a full fledged movie star who could carry a big Hollywood film really all by himself. The buddy movie concept would prove to be very lucrative for Tucker, especially this 1998 release which saw him paired with arguably the greatest Asian movie star to ever live (and one of the most magnificent athletes and physical specimens in action movie history) in the one and only Jackie Chan, who paid his dues and carved out a prominent piece of Asian movie history in Hong Kong before making a late career transition to Hollywood and still making historic strides all the way to the A list. Here, he was obviously being asked to carry Tucker all the way through in both the acting and stunt departments, and Chan pulls it off with longtime crowd pleasing director Brett Ratner playing it smart in how to handle Tucker in his quasi autistic type of schtick by editing scenes with a razor sharp methodology, allowing Tucker to get in two or three lines before cutting away from him and allowing either the scene to continue or the next scene (or bit) to be ushered in, complete with a genuine 70s style Lalo Schifrin score. This being a cop buddy movie, Chan is portrayed as being a badass Hong Kong police officer given a motive to come to Los Angeles and solve a case whereas Tucker is portrayed as being a complete fuckup, an LAPD officer who appears to be into emulating action movie cops without coming anywhere close to being one. In addition, he is the open laughingstock of his department amongst his fellow cops, with his commanding officer (legend Philip Baker Hall) more often than not preferring to laugh in his face and make fun of him rather than chew him out, due mostly to his pathetic undercover operations including the one that opens the film which sees him behave like a stupid idiot and arresting a suspect (Chris Penn) only after two other cops are badly wounded and Tucker himself sets off a truckful of C4 explosives on an open, crowded public street which results in scores of injured motorists who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Back at the station, Tucker is almost treated like a pet by his fellow cops, patted on the head and condescended to constantly. When Chan is called onto an American case of kidnapping by the Chinese Ambassador To Los Angeles (Tzi Ma, best known as the serious villain Cheng from 24 playing a decidedly more sympathetic role here), the FBI choose to completely disrespect and disregard his wishes (and risk an international incident in the process) by getting the shittiest LAPD cop in the city (Tucker) to not only babysit Chan, but to keep him away from the Chinese Consulate and the case itself while they try to grab all of the glory for themselves, but good luck with that as the mastermind is actually a British diplomat / Freemason (Tom Wilkinson) who has been running all Asian crime syndicates for years, employing Chinese henchmen but still having the final say on all criminal operations in the region. Certainly, a formidable adversary for Chan, but not quite as formidable as what he’s tasked to do here in carrying Tucker into having a watchable onscreen partnership. Chan plays it off as serene at first, merely smiling at Tucker’s idiocy before suddenly bursting into English (Chan’s first lead role in a Hollywood movie where he spoke English live onset without a dub of any kind) and roping Tucker into being his driver / human shield for the duration of the film, including allowing Tucker to con him into visiting his cousin (who’s a small time gangster) only for Chan to unknowingly say something racist and wind up getting jumped before his expertly balletic fighting skills make a bawling mess out of the roomful of black toughs. It’s no surprise that Tucker himself has limited fighting time during Chan’s schooltime sessions for bad guys, but Chan’s self imposed insistence on neither not killing nor permanently disabling his onscreen opposition (unlike Seagal) keeps this on the PG level minus the broken bones and gushing blood seen elsewhere. But Chan has other ways of breaking the ice here, keeping his Chinese cop both polite and honorable to a fault and even cutting loose at times most memorably with his singing along to Edwin Starr’s War in undoubtedly the film’s most iconic moment. With Tucker smartly kept in check by both Chan and director Ratner, the film became a smash hit and then franchised into a trilogy, with Chan commanding $20 million and Tucker (who was initially offered less) ultimately demanding and getting a matching salary for Part 2 and reportedly even more for Part 3 before abruptly retiring from the entertainment industry all while carrying that cash in hand, fully aware that he would never reach the level of many of his predecessors (and in fact, was one of the last black movie stars to be offered the role after everyone else had turned it down) even as his best work only heightened the career of his legendarily deserving co star…
8/10