From Black Belt to Black Tie
Chan is Over Dressed for Comedy

Ever since Jackie Chan crossed over from Hong Kong to Hollywood mainstream, there have been fewer fight scenes and more laughs in his movies. Maybe he's getting old. (And sore -- there have certainly been enough bruises and broken bones in his life.) With The Tuxedo, it seems that Jackie is firmly entrenched in comedy. More is the pity. While he has always been funny, it is the action that always sets him apart, like a modern-day Harold Lloyd.

In The Tuxedo, Chan once again plays an average guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. When not playing a police officer, this image has become his trademark whether as a chef in Mr. Nice Guy or the new guy in town in Rumble in the Bronx. As Jimmy Tong, Chan is a taxi driver who finds himself hired as the chauffeur of master spy Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs).

When his charge is nearly assassinated, Tong finds himself alone and unsure how to help. Using a watch given to him by Devlin, he dons the special threads that made his boss the super spy he was. I guess clothes really do make the man.

To further this comic misadventure, Jimmy is mistaken for Devlin by a rookie field agent (Jennifer Love Hewitt). To say that Love Hewitt was miscast in this film is an understatement. Not since Denise Richards was cast as a nuclear scientist in The World is Not Enough has there been a more unintentionally laughable heroine in an action film. She doesn't even work well as a comic sidekick. Trying to make her an action hero or (worse) a love interest, is just painful.

The plot, with a villain water bottling company (I'm not making that up), is threadbare at best. It seems that the writers must have thought that some sharp clothes and quick action could carry the movie. They thought wrong.

To its credit, there are some good action moments in The Tuxedo, but with the exception of the chase scenes most of them feel forced. The best laughs were used in the creation of the previews, so if you have seen them you have caught the highlights.

There are few people in my circle of friends who understand my affinity for Jackie Chan movies. While I enjoy some martial arts films, I am by no means a devotee. But there has always been something more to Chan's movies than fighting. In the end, it's all about style. I guess that's what disappoints me most about The Tuxedo. In the end, no matter how well-dressed, there's just no style.

MY RATING: 4 out of 10.

RATED:
RUN TIME: 98 min.

From Black Belt to Black Tie Chan is Over Dressed for Comedy

From Black Belt to Black Tie
Chan is Over Dressed for Comedy