Movie: Skiptrace
Direction: Renny Harlin
Cast: Jackie Chan, Fan Bingbing, Johnny Knoxville
Music: Chan Kwong-wing
Cinematographer: Chan Kwok-Hung, Lam Ching-ying
Editor: Derek Hui, Judd H Maslansky, David Moritz
Genre: Action, Comedy
Rating: ∗∗½
What is it about: It’s a Chinese-English action comedy which revolves around tracking a Crime Boss Matador. Bennie Chan (Jackie Chan) a detective who has been tracking this Matador for decade long. And when his late partner’s daughter gets in to trouble, Bennie gets down business to track down a American conman Connor Watts (Johnny Knoxville), who happens to be a key solution to the standing issue. This film is directed by Renny Harlin.
Why it’s disappointing: The film runs on a standard template which most of the Jackie Chan movies are built around. Skiptrace doesn’t offer anything new which you hadn’t seen before. And at some places the film loses its credibility as it ignores the obvious and jumps in to clichés which were not part of Jackie’s movies earlier. You start to feel like watching a Kollywood film heavy on melodrama and sentiments.
The film’s editing was quite jumpy, wonder if there were any cuts in the film from our censor board or the editing was just jumpy.
The majority of the supporting cast don’t look convincing and in places overact.
What to watch out for: The strong suit of the film is obviously Jackie Chan, who manages still at this age to carry the film forward swiftly. His antics have never bored the audience and it’s still young as if he never got old. There’s no compromise on the action and most definitely comedy. No matter how repetitive it is, when it’s from Jackie Chan we the audience enjoy with a huge laughter.
It was well supported by Johnny Knoxville, who came off well as his partner in the film and did a commendable job.
The cinematography by Chan Kwok-Hung & Lam Ching-ying is delectable, the landscape of China was splendidly captured and presented well on the silver screen.
The action was well choreographed which was perfectly infused with crackling comedy.
Verdict: Renny Harlin, the stupendous director from Die Hard-2 have maintained the essence of Jackie Chan well, but lost the taste it had to carry to make this film a credible one. The main ingredient was perfectly placed, but the supporting ingredients were scattered. The film is worth watching if you enjoy Jackie Chan, if not you can give it a miss.
