Man Movie Encyclopedia: Rush Hour

What is up, my beautiful people.

So, John Wick 3. Holy shit. Is that fucker a masterpiece or what? The first 20 minutes blew my scalp off, then replaced it with a with a big Bob Ross type afro scalp. That fight scene with the book, throwing knives, man, there was just SO much to like in this film. The story got a bit stupid, to be honest, but I was digging every single-second of it action wise. Absolutely brilliant.

So, I heard Rush Hour 4 was announced, and I thought, let’s go back and have a looksee, as it’s been years.

We open up with Inspector Lee busting up some bad dudes who are trying to smuggle Chinese artifacts that belong to a big-time gangster known as Juntao. He’s successful, and we then learn he’s connected with some high-ranking Asian cat from Hong Kong named Han who’s moving his family to LA, to be a Consulate. His daughter, Soon Lee, is angry at Inspector Lee for not coming along to LA.
It’s at this point we meet Detective Carter, who’s undercover at this point, trying to get some C4 from a cat named Clive. It doesn’t end up going the way he wanted it, but does make the arrest and blow up the car whilst he’s at it.

We then head over to the Chinese Consulate in LA, where the Asian cat from the beginning, Han is now living, seeing his daughter off to school. She never makes it, as she ends up kidnapped on the way. Welp, the FBI is on it, and the Chinese consulate wants Inspector Lee on the case as well, and they feel it’s just going to interfere with their business. So, they ask the LAPD to give them a guy to babysit Lee, and the Captain gives them Carter, who thinks he’s big shit now, and working for the FBI.
Carter picks up Lee from the airport, and believes Lee can’t speak English, so he does the thing where he over-enunciates his words and says them loudly. Why on Earth do people think that helps? If some Chinese cat started speaking Chinese really loud and clear to me, I’d think shit was going down. Which would make me look more confused, which would then prompt him to scream and over enunciate even more, which would then make me assume shit was REALLY going down, to the point where I’d have to do that move where I just stuck my arms out and spun in a circle.
Carter is under explicit instruction to not allow Lee to go to the Chinese Embassy. Lee keeps trying to escape as Carter goes around town hitting up CI’s for info, which, is ridiculously entertaining. Man, haha, I forgot what a MASSIVE stereotype Carter’s character is, I mean, it’s so over the top.

Welp, Lee finally gets to the Consonant, with Carter a bit behind, when they get a phone call from the kidnappers. They want $50 million in small bills. Which is such an obnoxious thing to do, you know how damn heavy that would be? I’d be really tempted to fuck with the guy and show up with $500,000 in pennies, $20,000 in $2 bills, and then tell him I was about $10,000 short, but I made up for it with coupon books that would save him like, $50,000 in the long run, so, I mean, c’mon, that’s come ups, baby!
They trace the phone call to an abandoned building that just so happens to be rigged, and the SWAT team goes up in smoke. However, Lee notices a cat he’s tangled with in Hong Kong near the scene, and chases after him. They get in a bit of a tussle, although he’s able to escape, but leaves a bomb trigger behind. Afterward, Carter goes to see Clive, the dude who selling C4 in the beginning. He says the cat buying up everything is Juntao, and he operates out of the Foo Chow Chinese restaurant. They head there, and Carter goes in pretending to be Juntao’s lawyer in order to get an audience. We then discover Juntao is this British ambassador that was once friends to Mr. Han, the Chinese ambassador. Lee & Carter get into a big ol’ brawl, and the drop gets screwed up, although it was unknown to them that that’s where another drop was going to happen.

Lee is sent home, same with Carter. However, Carter ain’t having it, and gets onto Lee’s plane, convincing him to get off it, in order to snag Juntao. They head to a big celebration, ceremony, where they show off Chinese artifacts that were ganked from Juntao. Which is why he wants the money, as payback. Literally, and figuratively. Carter & Lee crash the party, where Juntao is finally revealed to everyone, and we find the daughter with a bomb strapped to her. Carter enlists the help of a cop-friend who’s also studying to be a bomb defuser. Once that’s taken care of and she’s safe, it’s still a matter of getting Juntao before he gets away with the money. We have an awesome fight scene with Lee where he takes on 2 guys and attempts to keep artifacts from getting destroyed. I think to myself I would have just let them crash and burn, however, if they were sweet NECA action figures, then yeah, I would have done the exact same. Juntao grabs a few suit cases of money while all hell is breaking loose, and attempts to head to the roof. Lee gives chase, not allowing Juntao to leave, causing him to fall about 30 stories while all of his money rains down in the event center. Soon after Lee follows suit, in a pretty spectacular fall that’s on par with Jackie’s usual crazy antics.

MAN MOVIE TALLY:
1-Liners: 1
Guys Beat Up: 15
Guys Killed: 11
Swear Words: 38
Boobies: 0
Explosions: 2
Chase: 4
Broken Bones: 0
Fight/Shoot-Out At Motel?: No
Guy Get Girl? No
Guy/Girl Smoke?: No

MAN FACTS:
This was the first movie to feature Jackie Chan speaking straight up English with no dubbing.

Eddie Murphy was originally offered the role of Carter, but he did Holy Man instead. Honestly, I think Eddie would have killed it.

There was a lot less martial arts in this film, but audiences from test-screenings demanded more, and thus, we got more.

C’MON BENNETT, LET’S PARTY!:
Rush Hour is just fun, that’s all there is to it. It didn’t break any new ground, give any big revelations to society, it’s just a fun pop-corn action movie. Jackie is great as always, and while Carter gets to be a bit much, it doesn’t ever ruin the movie, and he has solid chemistry with Jackie. Also, the action scenes are all top notch, which they really dialed in for the sequel.
****1/4 Head-Butts out of 5

Any questions, comments, drunk-ramblings, feel free to send them my way, I always dig hearing from you, the beautiful people.
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