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Rush Hour 3
Reviewed by Theo Michelfeld
Posted: August 16, 2007

I have a theory that going to the movies is fun—that great movies are thrilling, good movies are great, bad movies are harmless, and horrible movies are awesome. So where does that leave a flick like Rush Hour 3? This movie is alternately bad and horrible, and at the same time neither harmless nor awesome. I hate to say it, folks, but my beautiful, life-affirming, and previously airtight theory is now in jeopardy. That is, unless I can somehow prove that Rush Hour 3 is not, in fact, a movie.

What’s truly impressive about this film is the sheer number of directions from which its awfulness attacks. There’s the omnipresence of Chris Tucker, whose loud-mouth-fool shtick tests the nerves even when he’s given good material, but nearly shatters the nerves given material such as this. There’s also the weird, chemistry-free non-acknowledgement of Tucker’s behavior by all of the surrounding, dead serious minor characters, as if this one shrieking obnoxious detective were the only silly person in the world. Speaking of ludicrous realities, there’s also, somehow, a general absence of law enforcement throughout Rush Hour 3, despite the fact that the main characters are cops, and mayhem follows them wherever they go. Furthermore, there’s the disheartening evidence that Jackie Chan has lost a step or three; this once great performance artist is still quicker than most of us, but by his own standards he looks ready for the golf course. Rush Hour 3 also (if you can imagine this) has the nerve to re-enact the trash compactor scene from Star Wars, and the hospital scene from The Godfather. Excuse me a minute, but: Why would they do that? What’s more, in a massive display of non-inspiration, they rob the “Who’s on First?” skit from Abbott and Costello, inserting a couple of Asian characters named “Mi” and “Yu.” Exhausted yet? Most upsettingly of all, the screenplay banks heavily on mean-spirited behavior toward every race, nationality and body type it encounters, and most especially toward women. Rush Hour 3 features pervasive, persistent, unfunny, depressing, pathetic, demeaning sexism from the first scene to the last.

To elaborate, the final scene goes like this: The heroes have been rescuing a pair of damsels from a supposed “army” of Asian mobsters, who turn out to be a dozen or so karate clowns who can’t shoot straight and can’t beat Chris Tucker, four-on-one, in hand-to-hand combat. Tucker and Chan presumably win this battle, but the audience can’t be sure, because the heroes leave one of the women in an elevator at the top of the Eiffel Tower with a bunch of mobster henchmen who may or may not be briefly unconscious. Back on the ground a French cabbie saves the day by shooting Max Von Sydow, who turns out to be a villain, to everyone’s surprise. The French police arrive, now that thirty minutes of shooting at a world famous landmark has come to end. Tucker and Chan then punch out the French police captain who previously violated them by cavity search before setting them free to carry out the rest of the plot. None of the captain’s junior officers question even the cabbie, much less the foreign detectives who have just trashed their city, punched their captain, and left a recently-rescued female hostage somewhere up in the Eiffel Tower. The girl’s well-being is never mentioned. Tucker and Chan dance off into the Paris night.  

The word “irresponsible” comes to mind. Meanwhile, the idea that camera crews were hired, work permits were secured, dialogue was memorized, and boom mics were lowered to deliver this story to the screen is nearly unfathomable. Is the Rush Hour buddy-cop tandem really in such demand? Tucker and Chan may have conjured a spark or two of chemistry ten years ago, back when the original film was nothing worse than a poor man’s Lethal Weapon, which was itself a poor man’s 48 Hours, which might make a list of the three-thousand-or-so best pictures of the early-eighties. But after this flick, these actors might want to prep for the reality show circuit: House of Has-Beens, or whatever those shows are called.

Meanwhile, my theory is shot, or least it needs revision. I can’t possibly prove that Rush Hour 3 is not a “movie.” Still, that doesn’t mean I have to use that magical word, and debase the celebrated tradition of art and escapism it connotes. I will call Rush Hour 3 something else. Perhaps I’ll call it “Rush Hour 3,” or better yet “A ninety minute piece of corporate malfeasance.” Or how about: “A series of ordeals—and not the kind that build character and make you stronger, but the kind that leave you stumbling out the other side, weaker, lower, and less alive.” I could call it any of those things, or I could finally admit that there is a fifth kind of movie, one that is not “great and thrilling,” or “greatly good,” or “bad but harmless,” or “awesomely horrible.” This kind of movie is “simply vile,” and the experience it provides is no fun at all.

Copyright © 2007 Theo Michelfeld