Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Mr. Nice Guy (1998)



I had a little trouble finding a movie to make a review of, so I decided to review the next film I see on the TV. The next film was a Jackie Chan movie, "Mr. Nice Guy", directed by Sammo Hung. Immediately when the movie began, I knew this would be one of those silly late 90's action flicks. But since I had decided to review it, so be it.

This time there's no need to hide any spoilers, if there was any, so I wrote a bit longer scene-by-scene type of review. For tl:dr -> the last paragraph.

The movie starts when a news reporter Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) and her colleague manages to record footage of a drug deal between a group of mafia and drug gang members. Although the drug deal goes wrong and the shooting reveals the hiding journalists. Diana escapes with the videotape but gets chased by the crooks. And when she's just about to get caught, she bumps into Jackie (Jackie Chan). We see a few fast paced and some what clever fighting performances by Jackie, and endless amounts of stereotypical "stupid villains", who speak with throaty voice and can never aim nor shoot their guns properly. Jackie helps Diana escape, and it turns out that Jackie is actually a famous TV chef. The crooks recognized him and thus he gets involved with the mess.

The mafia boss Giancarlo (Richard Norton) wants to get his hands on the tape, because otherwise it would reveal his drug businesses. Ofcourse after being chased, Diana is stupid enough to go straight to her home, where she learns that the videotape has been changed with one of Jackies cooking tapes. Meanwhile the villains had interrogated Dianas captured colleague, and so they get to know where she lives. Diana ends up getting caught by the criminal mob.

"I'm the bad guy and you should know that by now!"

Another chasing scene follows as Diana escapes the crooks, again, but now they know Jackie has got the tape, so they try to ambush him while he's doing his TV show. What a surprise, this attempt fails once again and we see yet another fast paced chasing+fighting scene, filled with low-fps slowmotions. This time spiced with horse wagons.

The mafia boss isn't pleased to hear about the failures, after a sequence of some serious over acting and yelling, he punishes his underlings by slapping them to the face with a tie. A F*king TIE, now this guy must be serious! We did see him shooting and punching people before, but now he's using a tie! whew.

Jackie's girlfriend Miki (Miki Lee) gets kidnapped in the previous hassle, so Jackie agrees to make a trade. The trade fails, surprise, and we see a chasing scene once again, with an inexcusable amount of low fps slowmos! This time Jackie chasing the crooks. The kidnappers escape with Miki, but another group returns to pick up Jackie aswell. Jackie beats up the group in an awkward van grappling scene, also causing severe car accidents.

Jackie finds out that Miki is being held in a construction yard. Jackie immediately appears to the right location, it's never explained how he got there, my guess is teleporting. Again Jackie beats up all the gang members in a flashy and actually quite well performed fighting scene. Jackie gets into a tight situation and is forced to surrender.

Mafia boss brings Jackie to his mansion (why?) and beats him up a bit. After Jackie appears unconcious, he orders his men to "take him to the guest house" also known as "execute him by leaving him in an open car and crush it with a giant truck". How convenient. Who would have guessed that this plan isn't Jackie-proof? Jackie hijacks the giant truck and crushes Giancarlos' mansion along with all his sports cars and limousines. Ofcourse Giancarlo also kept the drugs in the mansion, so the police could have evidence to arrest him.

"Who the hell hid explosives inside the ceiling lamp??"

And that was it. It was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. A silly Hollywood comedy action flick, and nothing more. It does have a few good moments, Jackie Chan doing amazing stunts and fighting, as he usually does in this kind of movies. The rest of the movie is just so poorly put together. Add together the stereotypical and uninteresting villains, mediocre acting, annoying slowmos and jokes that just aren't funny, unless you're heavily drunk. Overall, there are many better and more entertaining Jackie Chan movies to watch.

13 comments:

  1. Your review is spot on, good stunts and the great Sammo Hung directing.

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  2. I remember when this one came out. I was a huge Chan fan back then, and still am. That guy is never going to hang up his hat, and I'm cool with that.

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  3. oh yeah, Jackie Chan never fails to entertain.:)

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  4. not a big fan of jackie chan, good review though

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  5. Never seen the movie but Jackie Chan is awesome!

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  6. i was always more of a jet li guy. still jackie chan is pretty funny in combination with tucker

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  7. Haha awesome review, I remember this one.

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  8. Haha silly 90s movies...they rock

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  9. Jackie Chan movies are so awesome

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  10. Jackie Chan is a modern day Buster Keaton

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