Directed by James Foley
Written by Robert Pucci
Starring Chow Yun-Fat, Mark Wahlberg, Ric Young, Jon Kit Lee, Elizabeth Lindsey
My Advice: Wait for MST3K.
Nick Chen (Yun-Fat) is the best cop in New York City's Chinatown. But now the higher-up's have stuck him with a green cop (Wahlberg) who's also very anglo, making him both quite shunnable and quite a liability. Can they learn to get along and stop the bad guys?
The tragedy of this film is not necessarily that it was made. I reserve comments like that for Carrie 2. This film did have two crucial components: good stars. Yun-Fat is good as the non-funny Jackie Chan and Wahlberg is acceptable as the non-black and non-funny and non-fast-talking Chris Tucker. If only somebody had given them a good movie to act in. The screenplay by Pucci is flaccid and the direction by Foley is uninspiring. The film takes too long to get what little there is to start started and then never goes anywhere interesting. There is a subplot for each, Wahlberg's character has his father and Yun-Fat has a soft spot for a hooker--but since they do nothing but drag the already dragging film, who cares? Apart from one intense car chase scene, it was frankly rather pointless and boring.
Cliched cop/partner pseudodrama and corresponding lines of dialogue do nothing to assist, neither does the fact that between each scene is a segue consisting of a shot of NYC from above, complete with a song from the pretentious "we're so hip" soundtrack. Which is a shame since Carter Burwell did a great score for the film when they deigned to use it. Add to all of this baggage the fact that the film needed about twenty-five minutes trimmed off it, and you get a film that should be avoided. Sorry, guys--better luck next time.