Skiptrace

Hong Kong police detective Bennie Chan (Jackie Chan) loses his partner Yung in a deadly bombing. He suspects that businessman Victor Wong is criminal Matador responsible for the death. He's been investigating for 9 years to no avail. World-traveling thief Connor Watts (Johnny Knoxville) is on the run from the Russian mob after sleeping with the daughter of the boss. In Macau, he gets involved with Yung's daughter Samantha who is infiltrating a casino connected to Victor Wong. He steals her card to access a private floor where he witnesses Esther Yee's murder. He escapes by getting taken by the Russians. The casino accuses him of stealing money and Samantha asks Bennie to track him down.

This is classic Jackie Chan. The action is still there and so is his sense of humor. His fights still have that pep and his fights with Eve Torres are actually funny. It's nothing new except this time's guilo is Knoxville. I expected better chemistry but the two deliver enough comedy. The story doesn't really work and the movie tries very hard to make it into a muddle. The guys end up in the Mongolian desert for no particularly good reason other than it's exotic cool. It's great to see Jackie staying in fighting shape but it's not much better than that.

This film tells the story of a Hong Kong policeman who has to catch an American con man, chasing him from Macau to Russia. Along the way, they encounter trouble with Russian gangs and Mongolian tribes. They have to do everything to survive.

"Skiptrace" is in English but it is clear that it is aimed at the Chinese market. The film itself is adequately entertaining, with a lot of action scenes done in a funny way that makes you chuckle. However, it just looks like every other recent Jackie Chan film, even the action sequences are beginning to feel strangely familiar. It is an adequate choice to kill an evening, but don't expect too much because Hollywood action films have moved on but this hasn't.

It's always a crap shoot whenever a Hollywood film tries to bring martial arts into mainstream North America. Jackie Chan has for the most part bridged that gap successfully while integrating comedy. Unlike with his past comedic partners in crime from Owen Wilson and Chris Tucker. Johnny Knoxville fails miserably. It's not entirely his fault. It's the film itself. It seems to me Renny Harlin is trying to mash bits of Shanghai Noon with Rush Hour with a dab of Supercop. The film doesn't gel at all. The flow is all over the place and scenes are too implausible. Each scene, seems to be a gag. There's conversation/joke/story line implied then at the end of the scene, the punchline. Then it moves on. Action scenes are obvious Chan-born, which sometimes do not feel unique unlike his past Hollywood films. Feels too contrived, not original enough. I am a big fan of Jackie Chan - Johnny Knoxville is coming along trying to be taken seriously, but Renny can't seems to improve either actors and that shows in this outing. His last decent film, Long Kiss Goodnight should be used as reference to make better action movies.

'SKIPTRACE': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

The new Chinese-American action-comedy buddy film, starring Jackie Chan and Johnny Knoxville. It was directed by Renny Harlin, and written by Jay Longino, BenDavid Grabinski and Wen-Chia Chang. The film tells the story of a Hong Kong detective, that's forced to team up with an American gambler; in order to stop a Chinese crime boss. The movie also costars Bingbing Fan (a popular Chinese actress and pop singer), Eve Torres (a popular WWE wrestler, model and a Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter) and Eric Tsang. The movie received mostly poor reviews from critics, but it was a blockbuster at the Chinese Box Office. I enjoyed it.

Bennie Chan (Chan) is a Hong Kong detective, that's been pursuing a Chinese crime boss, known as 'Matador', for many years. He became obsessive about the case, when the notorious criminal killed his partner, Yung (Tsang). Bennie believes that a businessman, named Victor Wong (Winston Chao), is the 'Matador', but he doesn't have the evidence he needs to prove it. When Yung's daughter (Fan) gets in trouble with the crime boss, for letting an American gambler, named Connor Watts (Knoxville), steal from her, Bennie must track the gambler down in order to help her. Bennie and Connor then reluctantly team up, and of course bond on their new adventure.

The movie is everything you'd expect from a Jackie Chan buddy movie; it's reminiscent of 'RUSH HOUR' and 'SHANGHAI NOON', but not quite as good. Knoxville is great playing the comic relief, in action buddy flicks like this (he also did it in 2004's 'WALKING TALL', and 2013's 'THE LAST STAND'), and he and Chan have great chemistry together; it would have been interesting to see Sean William Scott in the role too though (who Knoxville replaced). Renny Harlin is of course very qualified to direct this type of movie as well, and he does a good job. It's a fun movie; not great, but fun.

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Okay, the plot is a little bit all over the place at times but it still had some pretty neat fights (Jackie Chan always delivers some good stunts for his films) and some fun humor (often within said fight scenes).

There was some dubbed scenes in the first 20 minutes where they clearly weren't speaking English as they would have had no reason to being just Chinese present but luckily that didn't last too long.

I'm guessing the studio thought that Johnny Knoxville fans couldn't handle reading too many subtitles so they dubbed every other scene that was Mandarin sometimes more obvious than others (in the first dubbed scene they avoid the obviousness by simply picking shots that avoid the lips of the cast when they speak).

But I guess that makes it feel a bit like the classic early 90's Jackie Chan movies where they did similar things for the international versions.

Anyway all in all I was mostly entertained and that's why we watch these kind of movies after all and it's worth watching it to see Jackie Chan sing Adelé alone.

6.5/10 for me.