English film review about Rush Hour2 or other films

Rush Hour 2: (Lalo Schifrin) Whether you like them or not, the pairing of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker turned out to be more of a success in Rush Hour than anyone could have predicted, with the film grossing over $250 million worldwide. For the directors and producers of the Rush Hour phenomenon, an equally important element of the film's success was the musical score by legendary jazz composer Lalo Schifrin, who remains best known for his hit television themes and scores for such shows as Mannix and Mission: Impossible. Schifrin's score for the original Rush Hour was a sort of novelty item, overshadowed obviously by the slapstick action in the film, but nevertheless of interest to Schifrin's fans and those few who collect such comedy action scores. Director Brett Ratner insisted beyond all else that Schifrin be employed for the sequel score, stating, "Lalo was as important to Rush Hour as were Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, which is to say that he was indispensable. There's no movie without him." As Ratner suggests, the role of this sequel film was to make a larger scale version of the original, adding that "for Rush Hour 2, the idea was to expand on the original idea with the addition of a more classical, symphonic approach." Ratner continued by reaffirming that Rush Hour 2 was an opportunity for Schifrin to revisit the same kind of material heard in his Enter the Dragon score, which remains one his more popular film scores to date.

The director was indeed correct in his assessment that Schirin would be given a larger palette with which to work. Because the setting of this film is in Hong Kong this time, Schifrin does reuse elements from his Enter the Dragon score, but in an even more contemporary fashion. The music for Rush Hour 2 contains some very good action cues, as well as an inspiring opening titles sequence. The larger action sequences make use of three distinct elements; first, the full orchestra, which sounds as though it numbers near 90, is highlighted by dynamic brass performances. Second, the Eastern ethnic elements include the mandatory gong, which seems, more than anything, to signify the American's perception of an Eastern setting. Finally, as to be expected in any of Schifrin's scores, the ensemble includes a rhymic section, with sax, drums, and electric bass mingling in nearly every cue. Schifrin succeeds in creating several minutes of completely authentic Chinese underscore, even with an appropriate theme, and these moments offer a break from the nearly constant jazzy untertones of the rest of the score. Other than cues such as the one for the Mu Shu parlor, Schifrin's music maintains an almost constant rhythm, usually dissonant in theme and almost always jazzy in rhythm. The Western jazz can sometime interfere with the Eastern orchestration, but the power of the full orchestra driving the bass often compensates for this awkward mesh.

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BY ROGER EBERT / August 3, 2001

"Rush Hour" (1998) earned untold millions of dollars, inspiring this sequel. The first film was built on a comic relationship between Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, as odd-couple cops from Hong Kong and Los Angeles. It was funny because hard work went into the screenplay and the stunts. It was not funny because Chris Tucker is not funny whenever he opens his mouth--something he proves abundantly in "Rush Hour 2," where his endless rants are like an anchor around the ankles of the humor.

Jackie Chan complained, I hear, that the Hollywood filmmakers didn't give him time to compose his usual elaborately choreographed stunts in "Rush Hour 2," preferring shorter bursts of action. Too bad Brett Ratner, the director, didn't focus instead on shortening Tucker's dialogue scenes. Tucker plays an L.A. cop who on the evidence of this movie is a race-fixated motormouth who makes it a point of being as loud, offensive and ignorant as he possibly can be.

There is a belief among some black comics that audiences find it funny when they launch extended insults against white people (see also Chris Rock's embarrassing outburst in the forthcoming "Jay and Silent Bob"). My feeling is that audiences of any race find such scenes awkward and unwelcome; I've never heard laughter during them, but have sensed an uncomfortable alertness in the theater. Accusing complete strangers of being racist is aggressive, hostile, and not funny, something Tucker demonstrates to a painful degree in this movie--where the filmmakers apparently lacked the nerve to request him to dial down.

There's one scene that really grates. The Tucker character finds himself in a Vegas casino. He throws a wad of money on a craps table and is given a stack of $500 chips. He is offended: It is racist for the casino to give him $500 chips instead of $1,000 chips, the dealer doesn't think a black man can afford $1,000 a throw, etc., etc. He goes on and on in a shrill tirade against the dealer (Saul Rubinek). The dealer answers every verbal assault calmly and firmly. What's extraordinary about this scene is how we identify with the dealer, and how manifestly the Tucker character is acting like a the seven-letter word for "jerk." Rubinek wins the exchange.

The movie begins with Tucker and Chan going to Hong Kong on vacation after their adventures in the previous movie. Soon they're involved in a new case: A bomb has gone off in the American embassy, killing two people. Their investigation leads first to the leader of a local crime triad (John Lone) and then to an American Mr. Big (Alan King). Sex appeal is supplied by Roselyn Sanchez, as an undercover agent, and Zhang Ziyi, from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," as a martial arts fighter.

Jackie Chan is amazing as usual in the action sequences, and Zhang Ziyi has hand-to-hand combat with Chris Tucker in a scene of great energy. There are the usual Chan-style stunts, including one where the heroes dangle above city streets on a flexible bamboo pole. And a couple of those moments, over in a flash, where Chan combines grace, ability and timing (in one, he slips through a teller's cage, and in another he seems to walk up a scaffolding). Given Chan's so-so command of English, it's ingenious to construct a sequence that silences him with a grenade taped inside his mouth.

But Tucker's scenes finally wear us down. How can a movie allow him to be so obnoxious and make no acknowledgment that his behavior is aberrant? In a nightclub run by Hong Kong gangsters, he jumps on a table and shouts, "OK, all the triads and ugly women on one side, and all the fine women on the other." He is the quintessential Ugly American, and that's not funny.

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