C
Skip trace
director
Renny Harlin
Duration
107 minutes
Evaluation
PG-13
Pour
Jackie Chan, Johnny Knoxville, Fan Bingbing, Winston Chao
Availability
Select theaters and VOD on September 2nd
For some reason, Super Bowl hires Tiësto as an in-game DJ
“You’re not a spring chicken,” an American player says to his Chinese friend in the middle of the East-West action spectacle Skiptrace. It's a putdown that's less of a benefit to the character and more to the man who plays him. Since Jackie Chan has been mocking his age on screen for at least a decade, the joke hardly feels fresh, but since there is an inherent fascination with watching idols age, this otherwise mediocre film has a certain elegiac power. It begins like a parody (or perhaps a rip-off) of a series of Hong Kong cops, with Chan's sincere Bennie watching his partner die during a drug raid gone wrong; As the film progresses, he gains a new buddy in the form of Connor Watts (Johnny Knoxville), a sleazy gambler who emigrated to China after being banished from local casinos and whose path also crosses with that of the super cop through intrigue. It's difficult to summarize it here.
The plot in Skiptrace is a compendium of general clichés, none of which are made much of. What's potentially interesting is the location filming (in Mongolia and the Gobi Desert) and the spectacle of Chan, at age 62, taking down stuntmen, which he does with slightly mechanical aplomb. (At this point, it's less about urgency and more about muscle memory.) Knoxville isn't as prominent a Hollywood foil to his co-star's iconic stoicism as Chris Tucker or Owen Wilson, but playing a jackass is right in his wheelhouse and in In such an action set piece he is very funny as a kind of tightly bound human prop. The biggest contemporary star on display is probably Fan Bingbing, whose role as the daughter of Bennie's late partner is the dictionary definition of “ungrateful.” Former WWE star Eve Torres makes a bigger impression as a hulking, iron-fisted henchwoman.
Director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Deep Blue Sea) has regressed since his early '90s poor man's Wolfgang Petersen days, and while he does a professional job with the fight scenes, he lacks the requisite finesse in the (endless) sprawling section of the film Hope Crosby picaresque, which serves as the film's middle section (and climaxes, if that's the word, with Chan singing Adele's “Rolling In The Deep”). Skiptrace is overproduced and underwritten, with editing that feels more like it's filling gaps in the story rather than cleverly playing with space and time. It's a film that caters to a range of competing interests and markets, trying to offer the proverbial something for everyone – meaning thrillers sit side by side with slapstick comedy and end up having very limited appeal.
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