Skiptrace

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.

Skiptrace finds Jackie Chan trying that odd Chinese-American combination yet again, but unfortunately he fails miserably this time. Johnny Knoxville fails to fire up that natural flair of comedy that Owen Wilson had so effortlessly aced in the Shanghai franchise. Unfortunately the movie falls like dominoes owing to a bland plot and an unvarying disconnect that rips apart whatever Skiptrace was trying to walk upon.

DIRECTION OF SKIPTRACE

The direction of Skiptrace is absolutely pathetic. Renny Harlin isn't really sure what he wishes to show. You can see that confusion in his frames. Or maybe that element of clarity is missing from his head that clouds his judgment. Editing will compel you to shake your head. It is that bad.

Humour is quite confined, always acting contrary to our expectations. With Johnny Knoxville in the vanguard to stay as the primary entertainer of Skiptrace, expectations naturally shot up high. But Johnny made it all mediocre. You keep waiting for something funny, but then the wait becomes punishing.

The plot is forced upon to entertain a deliberate road trip. You feel the emptiness of it all when you see nothing substantial emanate from any corner. We are always heading towards something, so that's kind of good.

Chan and Knoxville create an okay chemistry though it is hard to compare their pairing up with the likes of what you have seen over the years.

NOSTALGIC OLD TIMES

Gone are those days when Jackie used to be young, and his fight scenes used to be the ogling kind. It always sends me back in time, when I try to remember all of his arresting fight sequences from the likes of Project A series, Who Am I, City Hunter, Armour of God and Police Story franchise. He still manages to entertain us nevertheless, but the quantum of combat bits in his movies has seen a gradual decline over the years. Maybe old age is doing that to him. It is in a way sad, because even when his movies didn't bank on a good storyline, he used to still uplift them with his jaw-dropping brawls. We miss that profusely.

Now that I think of it every Jackie Chan movie is ending up like that. Maybe for a change he should use a stunt double so that he doesn't hurt himself delivering those parkour like stunts, as is quite evident from his end credit scenes.

THE FINAL VERDICT

Skiptrace makes for a passable watch, preferable when you are fine with your brain taking a holiday for a change. You cannot help but think, it is time Jackie Chan amp up his entertaining quotient, by partnering up with either Owen Wilson or Tucker again. At least that magic was working for him.

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.

Is this Jackie Chan at his best? Of course not, but if you like him or the particular style of movies, then you should be able to have fun with this. It's not really science to put a movie like this together, things just happen and the action sequences are decent enough put together (again don't look for excellence).

Even former Jackass and now Chan partner has a role that is fitting. He's no Owen Wilson of course or Chris Tucker for that matter. But he does his schtick and it ... sticks. The jokes may not have the impact some could have and many things are predictable, but that's the way it is. Don't overthink it (any of it), just sit back, relax and take it in

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.