Rush Hour (M)
Director: Brett Ratner
Bugs: Three and a half out of five
On the surface, Rush Hour seems formulaic at best – and
a tired old formula at that.
How many times have we seen the two cops/robbers/whatever from different
racial backgrounds teamed together? Too many to count?
So this reviewer wasn’t expecting great filmmaking from Jackie Chan’s
latest outing.
But Rush Hour turned out to be a lively, energetic and entertaining
movie, featuring spectacular stunts and martial arts sequences nicely balanced
with good humour.
The action centres on two cultures and two police forces – the Hong
Kong and Los Angeles Police Departments - which become intertwined through
a series of explosive events.
Contemporary martial arts legend Jackie Chan plays Detective Inspector Lee,
the shining light of the Royal Hong Kong Police, who rushes to America when
a visiting diplomat’s daughter and Lee’s pupil is kidnapped.
Half a world away, loner LAPD detective James Carter (Chris Tucker) is wreaking
havoc as he uses whatever methods possible to catch the bad guys.
The first time we see Carter he is shooting at a car with explosives in
the trunk.
Needless to say, Carter’s boss is willing to do anything to get rid
of him and immediately assigns him when the FBI call looking for someone
to ensure Lee is kept away from the case.
But of course, that does not happen (we wouldn’t have a movie if it
didn’t) and it isn’t long before Lee and Carter shoot, kick, and
punch their way in search for the evil syndicate led by Juntao who have
kidnapped the little girl. Directed by Brett Ratner, who recently teamed
with Chris Tucker in Money Talks, Rush Hour is loaded with wonderful
stunts and martial art exhibitions which happen so fast it's best not to
blink.
But over-shadowing all that is the humour, of which there is plenty. Chinese
jokes. Nigger jokes. Cop jokes. LA jokes. All executed with the timing of
a Chan head-kick.
The chemistry between Chan and Tucker is perfect as the laughs, rather than
the explosions, come thick and fast.
Support performances are also very good, including Chris Penn (Reservoir
Dogs, and perhaps soon, a Jenny Craig commercial), Elizabeth Pena (Lone
Star) and Tom Wilkinson (The Governess).
Good as Jackie Chan is, it's hard to go past Tucker (also seen in Jackie
Brown) who shows great comedic timing and should go far once word of
his motor mouth spreads.
Well-paced entertainment that should even amuse even movie-goers who are
not normally fans of Chan's work, Rush Hour might confuse on two
fronts.
Why was it called Rush Hour? And who's that fast talking negro with
Chan? Isn't he the guy from Lethal Weapon?
Believe it or not, Chris Tucker and Chris Rock aren’t related!
- Michael Gordon-Brown
Saving Private Ryan (MA)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Bugs out of five: Three
To this battle-weary old veteran, Saving Private Ryan was far
too graphic in its depiction of the horrors of modern warfare.
Whether Steven Spielberg's 30 minute opening depiction of the D Day slaughter
on the beaches of Normandy was a true depiction of that turning point in
World War 2 is best left for the old veterans unfortunate enough to have
been there.
But its animal savagery was not lost on this veteran of several famous battlefronts
in the Pacific region.
As I sat in the dark watching Private Ryan, my guts clenched with almost
unbearable pain and tears streamed down my face as I recalled that endless
rain of terror from above; those horrible screams of mates you'd gotten
to know really well since those days in boot camp together. And I've seen
what shell fragments can do to a brave soldier who's barely a boy.
Sickening, half-hidden memories of dozens of mates staggering around aimlessly,
trying to hold their guts in before my very eyes. I've huddled with other
young men, the enemy approaching and our ammunition spent, tears falling
unashamedly with the knowledge that our time was well and truly up.
Yes, war IS hell, and did we need Spielberg's multi-million dollar epic
to remind us of that? Was there sufficient entertainment value to make up
for force-feeding me with those hellish visions so close to those I experienced
in those nightmare Pacific rim campaigns? For this veteran, the answer is
No!
Why would you want to be reminded of those famous battle fronts of the early
to late 60s? Canungra. Wacol. Greenbank.
How it rained so heavily on cadet camp in Canungra in 1966 that our six-man
tents were awash night after night. Had to put our kit bags and 303s on
our cots and sleep on top of them. And those screams! Of young cadets forced
to take cold showers in the middle of winter. And how the head cook was
sacked and omelette taken off the menu after Johnny Simpson had to go home
early with that shell fragment stuck in his throat.
Nor was there a need to watch Private Ryan to be remembered how things
just got much, much worse as my military career developed.
Moving onto the CMF and the Greenbank campaigns of 1968 and '69, facing
the unknown threat of the wet canteen. How the CO cut back the canteen's
hours after too many young men were found legless outside, bringing up their
guts all over the place. That was army life at its most hellish. And who
could forget a few short years later, in a similar wet canteen at the height
of the Greenbank Campaign with the fighting 49th Battalion. Staying behind
after closing hours, all our money gone, weeping freely as we put our last
few coins into the jukebox to hear Peter Sarsted's Where Do You Go To,
My Lovely for the 19th and last time; the RPs pulling up outside in
their jeep.
All horrible images of war. And for this grizzled old veteran, a movie would
have to be something very, very special, not just have very very special
effects, to make me want to relive those moments any more than I have to.
- Don Gordon-Brown
The Waterboy (M)
Bugs: Two and a half out of five
After a slightly different turn in the surprise hit, The Wedding
Singer, American comic Adam Sandler makes a fairly successful return
to more familiar ground in The Waterboy.
Sandler, a graduate from Saturday Night Live, practically
reprises the roles seen in his earlier, less funny efforts, Billy Madison
and Happy Gilmore – the simpleton, the funny voice, the
misfit.
In fact, The Waterboy bares a stunning resemblance to a SNL sketch,
Canteen Boy, where Sandler played an eccentric 30-year-old who only drinks
from a canteen filled with water, is a member of the Boy Scouts and can
magically summon snakes.
He is funny here too, and obviously enjoys playing this type of character.
And although it is cliched, so familiar it is sad and starts more slowly
than Arjuna Ranatunga setting off for a single, The Waterboy (a.k.a.
Jerry Lewis meets Forrest Gump) does deliver the laughs – once it gets
going.
The baby-faced Sandler plays Bobby Boucher, a 31 year old social reject
from swampy Louisiana, who lives with his Mama (Kathy Bates) and fulfils
the lowly role of waterboy for a college gridiron team where he is taunted
by player and coach alike.
Bobby’s life is as motionless as the water he provides until he is
“fired” from that job as waterboy, and takes up the same position
with another college which, of course has a record losing streak.
Fortunately for Bobby, the coach of his new team (Henry Winkler, pictured
above with Sandler, who is very funny) has a similar personality to
his because he never quite made it as a coach – yet another surprise
– and he is able to transform the waterboy into his star tackler, making
his team a winner.
While all this is going on Bobby has fallen in love with someone other than
his mother, the criminally gifted Vicky (Fairuza Balk) who teaches Bobby
to stand up for himself.
Unfortunately, The Waterboy eventually winds down to a conclusion
only seen, oh, about a thousand times.
Ignore my cynicism; The Waterboy is actually quite funny, particularly
the tackling scenes.
Bates offers great support as his over-protective mother, who is equally
simple minded and whose culinary efforts begin and stop at huge snakes and
baby alligators.
There are several things to consider before seeing The Waterboy.
1. Don’t leave after the first five minutes. It does get better.
2. If you're a Steve Buscemi fan going along expecting one of those cameos
only Buscemi can really get his teeth into, don’t bother. He doesn’t
turn up in this one despite teaming with Sandler in Airheads, Billy Madison
and The Wedding Singer. His absence is a pity because a Buscemi
star turn might just have given this movie the big punt downfield it needed.
And, finally, please do something about the titles of Adam Sandler movies
– The Waterboy, The Wedding Singer?
Come on!
- Michael Gordon-Brown.
The Siege (M)
Bugs out of five: One and a half-claw.
Every now and then a movie comes along which forcefully rams home
the dangers that secret and powerful government agencies - and the bitter
rivalries that exist between them - pose to the lives of ordinary citizens
as we near the new millennium.
In the meantime, let's talk about The Siege.
On second thoughts, let's not.
- Don Gordon-Brown
