Early on in Rush Hour, there's a shot of Jackie Chan clinging tenaciously to a Hollywood streetsign as he dangles several feet above the L.A. traffic. It's a powerful metaphor for Chan's own career: though he saw mild American success for such Hong Kong imports as Rumble In The Bronx and Supercop, Rush Hour represents his last ditch effort to become a Stateside action star. (Indeed, Chan includes said image in the colour stills portion of his autobiography I Am Jackie Chan, annotated by the caption: "On the set of Rush Hour--hanging on to another chance at Hollywood success.") This final gamble, after such US bombs as The Big Brawl, paid off handsomely. But why?

Perhaps it was the teaming of Jackie with a rising comic star, Chris Tucker. Perhaps it was the fact that American audiences have always wanted to like Jackie Chan more but cannot tolerate the English dub-jobs his native hits have received abroad--now was their chance to hear Jackie speak English words and in his own voice, with his lip movements matching the dialogue. Perhaps it was the lack of competitive product during the film's theatrical run. Whatever the reason, Rush Hour was a sleeper hit, grossing over $100M domestically. Everybody loved it. Except this reviewer.

First, let's discuss Jackie Chan's First Strike, concurrently released with Rush Hour on DVD last Tuesday. New Line, the distributor of both films, is the only Hollywood studio that knows how to sell Jackie to the masses: "No stuntman! No equal!" trumpet the ads for Rumble in the Bronx; similar phrases were used to hawk Mr. Nice Guy and First Strike. These pictures are hit-and-miss affairs, of course, though I have a soft spot (make that weakness) for Jackie's Hong Kong fightfests. New Line is also the only movie company that bothers to give their Jackie titles top-notch video transfers.

First Strike is essentially a parody of James Bond films. Jackie plays a guy named Jackie, hired by the CIA for his martial arts skills to stop the Russian mafia. The Cold War is just beginning for our hero: the baddies (posing as KGB agents) have stolen, among other things, a nuclear missile. Somehow this leads Jackie to Australia, where he befriends a Koala bear, fights sharks, destroys a Chinese parade, and encounters "heart-stopping beauties." (Thus spake the DVD's liner notes.) That it took four people to write First Strike is as ridiculous as thirty-two writers having churned out the Flintstones movie.

And yet I am ever so fond of First Strike. It plays it straighter, and consequently is much funnier, than the Leslie Nielsen spoof Spy Hard. Jackie is trapped in a deadly shark tank only to be attacked by a...seal! Homing devices are hidden in...Jackie's briefs! Jackie even allows himself to look surprisingly inept on the slopes, unlike Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me or A View to a Kill; a thrilling jump to a helicopter isn't so much the result of a great set-piece as an attempt to save face after a tumble. Jackie is the class clown with a death wish. If anything, that's why First Strike's Kung Fu fighting is so immediate and impressive: when the moment calls for it, Jackie transforms himself from a bumbling idiot into a fighter with Fred Astaire's grace. Any old object in the room (in First Strike's case, ladders) becomes a deadly weapon or effective defense mechanism in Jackie's capable hands. Director Stanley Tong, who also helmed the aforementioned Rumble in the Bronx, delivers one of the more ambitious Chan vehicles with First Strike, although it's not particularly well-paced, taking a bit too long for my liking before Jackie gets to strut his stuff.

Not as long as Rush Hour does, granted. The worst enemy Jackie has ever faced turns out to be...Tucker, his Rush Hour co-star. More a limelight-hog than a scene-stealer, Tucker is the black Gilbert Gottfried: all abrasive behaviour and no salve like wit. He single-handedly chopped The Fifth Element at its knees--upon realizing that his DJ drag queen character was in that movie to stay, my fellow theatre-goers began chanting their disapproval. (Admittedly, this is as much Element creator Luc Besson's fault.) With his Cruella DeVil eyebrows and Cheshire Cat's grin, Tucker could pass for Chris Rock's evil twin. In Rush Hour, Tucker talks and talks and talks and talks but nothing resembling humour ever comes out of his mouth. Trouble is, the filmmakers afford him so much screentime at the expense of first-billed Jackie Chan that the best bit--a climax that finds Jackie taking on several henchmen at once while juggling priceless Ming vases--sticks out the way Van Gogh's "Starry Night" would on the wall of a sports bar.

In Rush Hour, Tucker plays Carter, a cop assigned to babysit Inspector Lee (Chan--is that the only name American writers can come up with for a Chinese tough guy? (see also: Chow Yun Fat in The Replacement Killers)), who has come to America in search of a kidnapped diplomat's daughter. Peroxide-blonde ransomer Sang (Ken Leung) is after big money, and the FBI would prefer to catch him without foreign aid. Carter's assignment is a punishment of sorts for having destroyed half a city block with a C-4 explosion. (No one died?)

Not a single thing happens in Rush Hour that you haven't seen before. That's not always a bad thing--the New Teen Cinema has offered a few welcome throwbacks--but Rush Hour needed all the surprises it could get. It's pure, unfiltered tedium. Racist, too. When Tucker busts into a room and says to Sang, "I'm gonna kick your sweet and sour chicken ass," it's an unbearably squirmy moment. What if Jackie had pointed a gun at Chris Tucker and declared, "I'm gonna kick your watermelon and fried chicken ass!"? The Asian-American population isn't, alas, prone to speaking out against this kind of thing, and so filmmakers feel safer throwing out "flied lice"-type jokes than they would revisiting the turf of Blazing Saddles.

New Line's Rush Hour DVD is chock-full of extras that have helped me assign blame for the picture's mediocrity (and casual racism) squarely on director Brett Ratner. During his feature-length commentary, Ratner admits to surrounding himself on shoots with a crew of veterans so that he may "learn from them." Hack filmmaker translation: he covers his ass. With the cinematographer of T2, Jackie Chan, the stunt coordinator for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy producer Roger Birnbaum on his team, he still comes up short! He talks about having begged the severely underrated Chris Penn to cameo, only to give a gracious Penn the worst part he's had since imitating brother Sean's Jeff Spicoli in The Wild Life, the botched sequel to Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The clincher is when Ratner discusses Polish cinematographer Greenberg's "bad" accent--not his thick one, his bad one.

Ratner's NYU thesis short is also included on this Platinum Series edition. It's a 10-minute piece called Whatever Happened to Mason Reese?. Reese was a '70s child star, a sort of white Webster. He looked four when he was twelve. Ratner's film pretends that Reese is as an adult living in the lap of luxury, surrounded by models and chauffered everywhere by limousine. He is also a hero to "short people" in this film, which is why Michael Anderson (the backwards-talking dwarf on TV's "Twin Peaks") co-stars as a chef at a Japanese restaurant who worships the by-now grotesque Reese. Ratner introduces the film and sets the story straight on Steven Spielberg's finanicial participation in the project--it's a story that leaves you incredulous, in part because Ratner didn't even recognize the name of Amblin head Kathleen Kennedy when she called him! What a fan.

In his commentary for Reese, Ratner reveals that his favourite shot is the one of Anderson struggling to reach his chef's hat, which has been hung too high. That kind of lowbrow, school-bully wit is this shithead's specialty. Ratner does offer one amusing anecdote, however: Reese grabbed one of the model's breasts during a take, inciting her to put him in a leg-lock, snapping his own leg in two! That led the injured Reese refusing to loop his dialogue; Anthony Michael Hall redubbed his entire track in a sort of Donald Duck soprano. Whatever Happened to Mason Reese? led to a career directing rap and hip-hop videos, two of which are included here: Dru Hill's "How Deep is Your Love" and a Heavy D song. (The latter is unlisted on the box.) He provides commentary for these, too.

The best element of the Rush Hour package is without a doubt the 40-minute making-of documentary. Highlight: an uncut segment in which Jackie choreographs a fight scene--the Chinese restaurant battle. Jackie imported his stunt gang from Hong Kong and they have a rapport that verges on telepathic--they know exactly what they're doing, how it will look, when to cut the shot, etc. This is one of the most insightful supplements I've ever seen, a valuable tool for young filmmakers or stunt-people. When Ratner asks Jackie "Is it your gun?" and Jackie shoos him away with a pained expression that says "Who cares," it demonstrates perfectly what separates the eastern and western priorities: Jackie wants to execute a complex and visceral fight, while Ratner is concerned about the automated weapon. This video also shows that Ratner, who apparently spent most of his time on set in a ridiculous, Michelin Man ski jacket, might be the very reason I found Tucker so hard to handle: he encourages Tucker to overplay every line.

More content: three minutes of deleted scenes, all incomprehensibly edited out--they are no worse than anything that made it into the final cut, and in some cases, would have improved the proceedings. (See: the additional scene at Elizabeth Peña's apartment.) A second feature-length audio commentary has also been provided by the infamous musician Lalo Schifrin (of "Mission: Impossible" fame)--with his bad accent, he's a little difficult to understand at times, but it's nice to see this often-overlooked piece of the pie recognized.

Lastly, you can watch the trailer for the film. If you have a PC DVD-ROM, enjoy:
-The screenplay
-Say What: an interactive trivia game
-Don't Blow It: a race against time game
-In-depth information on Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker
-Web links

Rush Hour looks great on my fave format. With the exception of whites being a little too hot at times, I found no fault with the 2.35:1 letterboxed, 16x9-enhanced presentation. First Strike is more problematic: though anamorphic (and 2.35:1 as well), occasionally the image is soft (and downright blurry on the blown-up standard version) and a little murky, with shadow detail at a minimum during the darkest scenes. On the audio end of the spectrum, Rush Hour is also the superior DVD, with 5.1 effects a plenty and thundering bass during the explosions and gun blasts. (A fine 2.0 mix is also available--it never sounds compressed or hollow.) Both discs are RSDL, and despite testimonies to the contrary, I noticed no layer switch during Rush Hour. Die hard Jackie fans will want both discs.-Bill Chambers