Jackie is a TV chef caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time, for the right reasons.
This is easily the best of the [[Jackie Chan]] movies to be
released in the U.S. so far. It has everything that a Jackie Chan movie
has that makes it his own (and is also missing the things that are
typically missing).
##Mindless Plot
OK. See if you can follow this. Jackie plays a TV chef that, on his way
out of the studio one day, helps a damsel in distress. After fighting off
several big guys in suits with guns and bad hair cuts, he gives her a lift
in his nice red Mustang. While giving her a lift, her video tape of a
local gangster gets mixed up with the video tapes of his show. See, it
turns out that she’s a news woman who has just video taped the head
gangster from the area (Mr. Giancarlo?) making a drug deal and killing a
couple of people. She gets spotted, which is why she’s getting roughed up
by the bad guys when Jackie comes along in the first place. The problem is,
now the bad guys think that Jackie is in on it.
Now, if that isn’t enough, there’s a rival gang that finds out about the
tape and decides that it can use it to extort some money from the head of
the other gang. Get it? Got it? Good!
##Stupid Bad Guys
One thing that always seems to be true in Jackie Chan movies, is that the
bad guys are there for only 2 things: someone for Jackie to fight with,
and for comic relief. And this bunch is no exception. I mean, seeing a guy
slapped around with his own tie by the mob boss is just plain silly. Silly
enough to get a laugh, and remind us not to take the movie too seriously.
[[jackie_neckbrace]]
##Great Stunts
As always, there are great stunts here. One comes right near the beginning
of the movie where Jackie and his girl friend Mickey are in a runaway horse
and carriage with the bad guys jumping on board trying to get Jackie. He
dispatches them with things like flying kicks and back flips from within
the moving carriage!!! He also almost gets his head taken off by a trolly
coming by while hanging off the side.
Another incredible stunt comes near the end of the movie when he’s
fighting a bunch of guys in a building that’s still under construction. He
gets kicked onto a wheel barrow that’s on a ramp down to the edge of the
floor (looks like about the third floor). If you’ve ever seen a
construction site, you know what I’m talking about. The wheel barrow is
used to drop garbage and things over the side. Anyway, Jackie goes over
the edge, but catches himself by the handles of the wheel barrow and is
hanging there with no net. It turns out that he almost got killed filming
this. During a rehersal run, he missed the handles and fell 2.5 stories and
landed on his head dislocating 3 spinal vertebrae!!! It took several weeks
to heal and then he went back to do it again for the movie! Now that’s
some serious dedication for our entertainment!
##Cool Little Things
This movie is also repleat with what I like to call “cool little things”
that Jackie does that no one else can do. Like running up vertical walls,
or using a cement mixer at the construction site as a weapon. These types
of things are uniquely Jackie, and worth the price of admission all by
themselves. I can’t tell you how many times during this movie I heard
people muttering things like “How the hell does he *do* that!”, but
it was quite a few.
##All in All
This is easily worth seeing. Don’t expect a great film, but rather expect
to leave the theatre feeling like you’ve been entertained for the last
couple of hours. What more can you ask for from a movie anyway.
CarneyWeb 