Film

Rush Hour 3 (2007)

Director: Brett Ratner

Synopsis

A sequel to the hugely popular series of films about comically mismatched cops Lee and Carter. This time around Chief Inspector Lee runs into trouble while escorting Chinese Ambassador Han to the World Criminal Court Summit in Los Angeles. Detective James Carter, now demoted to traffic cop, is on hand to help however, and soon the pair are heading to Paris to do battle with the French police, the triads and, of course, each other.

Movie review

From Time Out Chicago

The cinematic equivalent of a third-generation photocopy of a doodle barely worth a glance in the first place, this perfunctory portion of multiplex slurry sends tediously mismatched cop duo Chan and Tucker to Paris in search of secret Triad crime bosses.

Upon arrival in the City of Light, they are arrested by a French detective played by fugitive sex-criminal Polanski, who pulls on a rubber glove prior to sticking a finger up both men’s rectums. Because the cavity search takes place offscreen, we were left to wonder whether or not the director of The Pianist put on a fresh glove for the benefit of whomever got probed second. Obviously it’s not a crucial plot point or anything, but we find thinking about such random stuff can be useful in fending off sleep in the screening room (which is a point of honor for us, unlike certain parties we could name).

Anyway, the jokes get no better than that ass-fingering gag, and the action is as dull as dishwater. Granted, nobody does that magical lift-up-the-chair-with-his-feet-to-intercept-the-knife-flying-toward-his-ballsack thing better than Chan, but it takes more than that to build a blockbuster. Kudos, however, to the ultra-imaginative casting of Von Sydow as an old, white-haired good guy who turns out to be way corrupt and evil. Poor Christopher Plummer must be eating his liver.