MONTREAL — Jackie Chan has had Chris Tucker and Owen Wilson assist him in past buddy-cop comedies. Movies like “Rush Hour” and “Shanghai Noon” were fun to watch, but they always had to rely on the chemistry that Chan would have with his co-star. The screenplays always played to the genre’s conventions, but never had enough material that one might call “original” in them. Nonetheless, the stunts and fights were always inventive, and how could they not be, with Chan, who continues to eschew using a double to perform the sequences himself, often risking his limbs, if not his life.
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With the right co-stars, Chan and co. could actually make a lazy script work, but sadly, Johnny Knoxville is not one of them. Director Renny Harlin‘s “Skiptrace,” making its North American premiere at Fantasia Film Festival, stars Jackie Chan as Hong Kong cop Bennie Chan and Johnny Knoxville as American gambler Connor Watts, and it just so happens that they both, unknowingly, are the targets of a nasty Chinese criminal. Chan’s Bennie is obsessed in capturing drug-dealer kingpin “The Matador,” who is responsible for the murder of his partner. Meanwhile in Macau, Watts is being chased by Russian gangsters for impregnating the boss’ daughter, but also, unwillingly, witnesses the shooting of a woman by the Chinese mob. Watts is the prized witness for Chan, but also the a prime target for Chinese henchmen who will chase both of them for the rest of the movie.
Chan and Knoxville do share moments where their partnership works, even if they do feel like shades of better scenes we’ve seen in older films, but one at a Russian packing plant where a matryoshka doll is used as a prop is not only tremendously exciting stuff, but encompasses the ingenuity and humor that one might find in a better Jackie Chan movie. But mostly, the plot is almost a prop in itself, a kind of excuse for the next fight to eventually occur. Chan’s signature comedy fighting style is infectious, and there’s a reason why this man has been in the game for more than five decades and has had so much success. Chan is the product of what would have probably happened if Charlie Chaplin and/or Buster Keaton were equipped with a litany of martial-arts skills.
The locations in “Skiptrace,” which include China’s Guangxi and Guizhou Provinces and parts of Mongolia, are beautiful to watch and do sometimes distract from the lazy plotting that Harlin has concocted here. Harlin, now 57 years old, is no slouch at giving us stinkers. He’s made it a living in a career that includes titles such as “Cutthroat Island” and “Deep Blue Sea.” His directing here is competent and outlandishly safe, but expecting anything other than by-the-book entertainment from Harlin is not informing yourself enough of his past.
Knoxville is not necessarily a bad actor, but his skills lie in more daring films and not the ones that lean conventional. In “Skiptrace,” his role is filled with lame one-liners and no real sense of a developed personality. Seeing the king of “Jackass” pretend he knows what he’s doing during fight sequences is an absurd proposition to believe for the audience. He always seems out of place, and the inconsistent tone he brings to Watts is a disservice to the comedic elements the film is trying to create.
Chan, on the other hand, stumbles, dives, rafts, climbs, jumps his way around the fight sequences as expertly as we always expected him to. His physical stamina is remarkable to watch, especially when you realize the man is 62 years old, and while his acrobatic nature has always been part of his shtick, so has the endless flow and rhythm that come with his every movement. He brings energy to a film that desperately needs any kind of life, but there is only so much Chan can do. [C-]
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“Skiptrace” is available on DIRECTV CINEMA now.
