Mr. Nice Guy (Yatgo ho Yan) (1997, PG-13)

Starring Jackie Chan

As Reviewed by James Brundage

I really love Jackie Chan. He's fun to watch, he's a break from the ever-tedious norm. But, Jackie Chan as ... the kung fu cook? Come on.

Jackie Chan plays opposite no names in Mr. Nice Guy, a film that rivals any of the 50s B-movies or the 60s Kung-fu flicks. It's high on fun, but low on quality.

The plot basically follows Jackie Chan playing... Jackie?, the Kung Fu blackbelt and gourmet chef. I think they're running low on plots. And, to add in other bit of cheesyness, he's running from bad guy drug dealers in search of an incriminating tape. Resisting the urge to make a joke about Larry Flynt, Linda Trip, or anyone involved in any recent sex scandal, I can only state that we all know just how many times people have wanted a tape. To be quite honest, this bothers me as a plot device. If they could just shoot the person instead of asking for the tape, they'd save us and themselves a lot of time and energy.

 But, as always, to hell with realism.

Still, the plot devices in Mr. Nice Guy are as hackneyed as a whooping cough, and I really can't stand the fact that they decide to put them in at every turn. It reaches a sad point when a theatre-released film with Jackie Chan is worse than the HBO film "Jackie Chan's: Who Am I?", which at least had action scenes. But I don't even get that anymore. Mr. Nice Guy has the tendency to just bother someone with cheaply filmed action sequences.

Although it doesn't usually bother me, the thing that bugged me about Mr. Nice Guy wasn't only that it felt cheap. It looked cheap, too. The explosions are obviously stock footage, and the film itself looks like a home video with poor lighting.

Anyway, the plot continues with them taking Jackie's girlfriend hostage and Jackie coming and kicking everyone's ass. To add in what people thought would be fun, they decided to have a rival gang thrown into the mix. Oh, yeah, and the other main character is a member of the media who wants the tape back just so she can get her story.

You get the impression that the media is going to hate this girl, because she rubs off as a total bitch, almost as much as Jackie's girlfriend rubs off as a total ditz. She resorts to parading around half-naked and accusing people of fondling her to stay alive. She acts like a hooker and runs off, never to be heard from again, a half-hour from the end of the movie. So long, farewell, goodbye, good riddance.

Another terrible aspect of this film was the accent everyone had. I may have missed something, but it apparently takes place in Sydney or London or some city with a British accent. Normally, again, accents don't bug me, but this movie appears dubbed even though I don't think it was. If Hollywood made it, shame on them for doing so. If Hollywood didn't, shame on whoever turned it out.

I'd like to tell you that the performances were good but they weren't. I'd like to tell you that it was enjoyable, but it wasn't really. It was enjoyable to the fact that I could sit through it, but I couldn't wait to turn it off, either. It runs about 90 minutes, and each one is worse than the last. I really can't stand it that films have gotten this bad, that a person able to turn a cheesy film into something very funny can't do a damn thing with this. It just bothers me.

It should bother you, too. But, if you're lucky, you haven't seen it yet and you won't.