Review: SKIPTRACE

Skip This Movie. Let It Fade Away Without A Trace

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

Jackie Chan still has it! He can kick and punch his way out of the oddest of scenes, save the girl and get the bad guy too. In this movie he has to drag the obnoxious Johnny Knoxville who has proof against the bad guy from Russia all the way across picturesque China to Hong Kong. But the novelty wears off really fast and you wish Johnny Knoxville all kinds of hell.

Main Review:

Jackie Chan plays the good Hong Kong cop again. This time he’s after Matador, the kingpin of the underworld. Before you can say, ‘I’ve seen this before!’, Johnny Knoxville makes an annoying entry. He’s playing himself, you think, but settle down to watch as Russians kidnap him. Hope they keep him there, you wish. But it comes down to Jackie who has to get him back to Hong Kong.

Their journey is eventful, and takes us through beautiful Chinese countryside. The locales are so stunning, you forget the visual blight that is Johnny Knoxville. The terraced farming, the gorges, the never-ending winding roads… A spectacle on the big screen.

But the many attempts by Knoxville to get away from Jackie Chan begin grating on your nerves even though you like that many unique customs of the Chinese...The throat singers make you smile and so does the rendition of Adele’s Rolling In The Deep by Mongolian hordes…

The super fit Eve Torres of WWE fame plays the Russian mafia girl and shows great martial arts skills. You duck in your seats when she comes at the camera swinging her knuckle-dusters. The humor is everything you expect from a Jackie Chan movie, because he uses even the Russian Matryoshka dolls to evince laughs. You will love his acrobatic skills and will laugh at the destruction of the fishing village…

The end is super tame, considering how much we put up with Knoxville. Knoxville was annoying even years ago with his television prank show aptly named Jackass. He’s not aged gracefully and the loud laughter and the stupidity of his role grate on your nerves even before we can say, watch this movie when there’s nothing else on the telly.