The Tuxedo Dir: Kevin Donovan
Adam Keen reviews Jackie Chanb's Tuxedo.

Starring: Jackie Chan, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jason Isaacs, Debi Mazar and Ritchie Coster.

I confess I am a lifetime Jackie Chan fan. Yet with over 100 film credits to his long career as the world's biggest action star, you cannot expect all of them to be good. The truth is that most of Jackie's movies are pretty stupid and survive only on his superlative acrobatic screen presence. The Tuxedo, however, is something a little different. The years are catching up to our Jackie hence the glory days of leaping over deadly chasms without a net and landing 20 foot falls on his head are long gone. And now he is a bona fide Hollywood star, the insurers wouldn't let him break a so much as a toenail (which is probably a good thing for a body that might well be held together by staples and sticky tape).

All this means Jackie's films are forced to rely more on conventional virtues and less on a gravity-defying hyperactive Chinaman. Said conventional virtues being a silly plot that rips off the Bond spy genre, about a megalomanic madman who plans to take over the world through bottled water, Jennifer Love Hewitt's cleavage, and computerized special effects.

Jackie plays a humble chauffeur who works for a suave spy guy called Clark Devlin. When an assassination attempt on his boss comes perilously close to succeeding Jackie is steps into his shoes to take over the mission. The smart bit is that the shoes come attached to the tuxedo which is itself the world's best tailored battle suit bristling with gadgets, weapons and useful dance routines.

Obviously we are not supposed to take anything seriously, which allows us to have nearly as much fun as Jackie and the crew had filming this light-headed farce (the out-takes shown during the credits are well worth staying for!) There are glimpses of Jackie's usual chop-socky stylistics but he mainly plays his scenes for laughs instead of lumps. The good news is that Jackie's English is coming along nicely, with a spicily-simmered chemistry between him and co-star Hewitt, and only the occasional swallowed consonant. The bad news is that too much time in Hollywood has smoothed away the uniquely patchy and reckless character that trademarks his films, which, for many fans, are the things we loved best about them.

© 2003 Adam Keen. All rights reserved.