My Review of "Rush Hour"

Rush Hour is a buddy cop movie that came out in 1998. This is one of the biggest movies to come out that year and I remember all the buzz coming out of it. When I first saw this movie, I loved it. It was Jackie Chan's first big North American movie. Rumble in the Bronx was popular but it was an old Hong Kong movie that was reissued to North America. This was his first big bona fide Hollywood movie. I'm not counting Cannonball.

This is the movie that brought both Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker into superstardom. After this movie came out, the popularity of both of these actors would be out of the world. This was all the way back in 1998 and we still quote this movie today. I wanted to see if this movie is as good as I remembered it back when I first saw it. Good news, it's still really good.

The movie starts off with the introduction of Hong Kong. There is a passing of government. Hong Kong would be passed to over to China and here we meet Consul Han and his daughter Soo Yung. They have a trusted body guard named Lee. They are celebrating China's takeover but there would be some changes coming soon.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the world, we meet detective Carter. He's a cop in the Los Angeles police department. Already we notice how much of a rebel he is. He doesn't really follow much protocols and he's a lone wolf. In his weapons sting he blows up a street and injures fellow officers. Despite his inadequacies as a police officer, there is no denying this guy has charisma to spare.

Some time has passed since the China takeover of Hong Kong and now Consul Han is in Los Angeles. He's hoping to reveal some exhibit with some ancient Chinese artifacts. Unfortunately for him, there are some bad guys that kidnap his daughter Soo Yung for ransom.

Not confident in the FBI, Consul Han has asked Lee to come to America to help find his daughter. The FBI doesn't want Lee to interfere so they asked the LAPD to voluntell someone to help them babysit Lee. That person of course would be Carter.

It's a match made in heaven. Carter is the Wildman while Lee is the straight man. The two of them are pretty much comedy gold. Carter does a lot of the heavy lifting in his delivery and expressions. Lee does a good job in selling the seriousness of the situation. It works so well that I got sucked into the whole environment. I couldn't help but want to be part of the fun and the way they shoot this movie it feels like it. You're like a fly on the wall while all of this zany stuff is happening and it's so much fun.

The action sequences are pretty fun as well but by today's standards they're not really anything to write home about. The real bread and butter of this movie is the relationship dynamics of Carter and Lee. Most of the time Carter steals the show because of Lee's struggles with the English language.

Surprisingly, the jokes still stand up today. I thought that the jokes would feel dated and some are but somehow it just works. Carter just has a delivery about him that really sells these ridiculous jokes. He's the kind of guy you'd hate to love but you can't help but love him.

Overall, I had such a great time with this movie. It really stands the test of time because of the performances of the outstanding cast. They know what their strengths are and they really highlight them here. I would recommend this movie and watch it again. That's why I have to give this movie an 8 out of 10.