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Knock Off
*1/2
Rated on a 4-star
scale
USA
Directed by Tsui Hark
Written by Steven E. de Souza
CAST.....
Jean-Claude Van Damme.....Marcus Ray
Rob Schneider.....Tommy Hendricks
Lela Rochon.....Karen Leigh
Michael Wong.....Lt. Han
Paul Sorvino.....Harry Johannson
Carmen Lee.....Ling Ho
Glen Chin.....'Skinny' Wang
Jeff Joseph Wolfe.....Skar
It occurred to me early on in "Knock Off"
that I should have some idea of what was going on, but hard as I
tried to follow it, I couldn't. It's the new film starring Jean-Claude Van
Damme, and he plays Marcus Ray, a dealer of counterfeit goods in Hong Kong.
For no reason whatsoever, the film takes place around the time of the city's
hand-over back to China.
The 'plot development' is weird to say the least,
directed as bad comedy with buffoonery for acting and strange camera movement,
and the actors' dialogue doesn't seem to have been lip-synced very well.
If all this sounds like one of those countless cheap, violent Hong Kong action
movies, that's probably because the director, Hark Tsui, is a long-time veteran
of them. But working from a screenplay by Steven E. de Souza, a long-time
veteran of writing Hollywood action films, he seems to be bumbling everything.
Rather than using the best of both of these worlds, Tsui seems to strip them
away for fear of conflict, and the result is a drab film. The only things
about "Knock Off" that I would compliment are the fact that Lela Rochon looks
gorgeous in all her scenes, and the nice music score by Ron and Russell
Mael.
When I said I couldn't follow what was going on,
I meant that it didn't make any sense to me. I know perfectly well what literally
happened, but this is the kind of film which expects you to leave your brain
at the door, and then doesn't make clear who are the good guys and who are
the bad. Let me describe all of "Knock Off", and you can see if it makes
sense to you. First we have explosions, subtitled mumbles at a high volume,
confusing panic and gunfire. Then, when Van-Damme and his co-star, Rob Schneider,
appear onscreen, we get some dumb dialogue, inappropriate close-ups of the
weirdest things and weirdos racing each other in clumsy push-carts. Weird
fish, luridly lingering violence, naff costumes, annoying waitresses whining,
bizarre fights breaking out for no reason, ludicrously elaborate stunts on
top of moving automobiles, ugly background imagery, indecipherable character
motivations and an Englishman who sounds Chinese. The film climaxes in an
action sequence which gets off to a nice start, but goes on for far too long.
Then the film just ends!
I wish I could have enjoyed the silliness of all
this, but it's not that laughably bad. Ultimately, all this dross just adds
up to a film that's plain dull. What else is there to say?
COPYRIGHT© 1999 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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