Skiptrace
2016; directed by Renny Harlin

Now (supposedly) in the twilight of his career -- at least in front of the camera -- sixty-two year old Jackie Chan has taken a different track with his recent films, for the most part staying away from the stunt and fight heavy work that has categorized the majority of his filmography. Skiptrace's gimmick of pairing him with Jackass alum Johnny Knoxville in a thinly-veiled redux of Midnight Run directed by the same guy who gave us gems like Cutthroat Island seems like a recipe for disaster, but shockingly, the end results are actually pretty entertaining and is some of Chan's best work in years.

In the movie, Chan plays Benny, a cop who has been seeking vengeance for the death of his partner Yung (Eric Tsang) after he has been killed by a mysterious crime boss known only as The Matador. Yung's daughter, Samantha (Fan Bing-Bing) is working undercover in one of The Matador's casinos and is suspected of helping a con man named Connor (Johnny Knoxville) get away with a million dollars, so when Connor goes on the run, Samantha asks Benny to bring him back to Macau so that The Matador will not kill her. Benny does quickly find Connor, but circumstances soon show that the trip home will be anything but easy.

Chemistry between the leads is very important is a film like this, and thankfully Chan and Knoxville work well together, to the point that their friendship towards the end of the movie is believable and not forced. As you might expect, the jokes aren't anything terribly cerebral, being mostly culture clash based (such as an extended musical scene featuring a Chinese version of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep") and guffaws revolving around people incurring trauma to their nether regions. Some of the comedy is also unintentional, like with Michael Wong's (who plays Chan's chief) tried and true and loveable mangling of the Cantonese language. There is also a refreshing lack of any political subtext and thinly-veiled pro-Mainland Chinese propaganda, which is a nice change of pace from many recent releases.

Action-wise, of course, this is nothing compared to Chan's classics like Drunken Master II or Police Story, but it's not bad if you're not going to be terribly picky about the proceedings. There is some obvious camera trickery and editing going on, as well as Chan being doubled for the more acrobatic bits. And even your humble reviewer's wife, who is not a major martial arts movie fan by any means, could see how Chan is not as speedy as he used to be. But the fights, for what they are and given Chan's age, are fun enough and still show that even if Jackie Chan is performing at fifty percent of what he used to, he's still probably more talented than ninety percent of the other so-called action stars out there.

RATING: 6.5