Review of Rush Hour

Introduction

Rush Hour is one in a long line of cop "buddy" movies to come out of Hollywood over the last few years. Pairing a streetwise American cop with a supposedly dimwitted foreigner is not a new idea - Red Heat succeeded with James Belushi and Arnold Schwarzenegger several years ago.

Jackie Chan, veteran of so many movies, so many stunts and so many injuries teams up with Chris Tucker who features as the wisecracking Detective James Carter, assigned to lead Detective Inspector Lee (Chan) anywhere other than interfering with the investigation into the kidnapping of the Consul`s daughter. Of course, the two end up ignoring their orders and causing chaos.

Video

Video comes in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen and is of good quality throughout. There are no noticable artefacts, grain or dirt and the image is colourful, crisp and stable.

Shot mainly in the streets of Los Angeles, the movie looks and feels authentic, with the action - dominated by Chan of course - taking place in traffic and on building etc.

There is little in the way of special effects - just the graceful Chan moving, sometimes breathtakingly easily, over/under/around obstacles. Chan is very reminiscent of early action stars Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton in his style.

Audio

A good Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack provides a suitable backdrop to the mastery of Chan and idiocy of Tucker.

Good use is made of all the available channels - with plenty of rear channel action throughout the movie.

The dialogue is clear and understandable despite the surrounding mayhem.

Features

There`s a surprisingly good array of extras on Rush Hour.

To start with there are some gags during the end titles, and a proper gag reel which is pretty amusing and show you that Chan`s mastery of movement is not replicated in his mastery of the English language.

There are also two music videos, behind the scenes, a short film and a trailer.

The best bit however are the 17 featurettes that can either be watched individually or as one long documentary. This is a very interesting look at the film - and in particular the way that Chan works - which is remarkably different from the way that Hollywood works.

The film is packaged in the usual white Amaray case that EiV use for all of their films - and of course features the multipage folding insert that features a chapter list and adverts for umpteen other movies. I really wish EiV would stop this practice!

Conclusion

Overall, despite being no-brainer entertainment, Rush Hour is relatively entertaining. The reason for this is entirely down to Jackie Chan and has nothing whatsoever to do with the plot or Chris Tucker which are nonsense and annoying respectively. Chan is a great entertainer and his talents are wasted in Rush Hour.

Good picture, good sound and a very good range of extras are welcome, but one thing this disc doesn`t have much of is repeat viewing value - I didn`t enjoy it anywhere near as much the second time round as Tucker became tiresome.