The name? Tong, Jimmy Tong.
The story begins when a pitiful, but skilled behind-the-wheel, New York City cabbie, Tong, played by Jackie Chan, is hired by a mysterious woman to be a chauffeur for an equally mysterious man named Clark Devlin.
When a mysterious explosion hospitalizes Devlin, Tong takes over Devlin's secret mission - to uncover the secret plans of mysterious bottled water mogul Diedrich Banning.
While in the process of retrieving a few amenities for his injured boss, Tong decides to try on Clark's automated tuxedo. The tuxedo gives its wearer uncanny powers of combat, concealment, seduction and a whole lot of soul. Tong is suddenly thrust into a perilous world of espionage, loose women and fast cars.
Jennifer Love Hewitt stars opposite Chan as rookie agent Del Blaine. Del lands the impressive assignment to partner with the legendary Clark Devlin. She never suspects that her new partner is definitely not Clark Devlin and is, in fact, even less experienced than she is.
"The Tuxedo" is not really a typical Jackie Chan movie. He doesn't come on screen kicking ass. Instead, he is a fairly normal guy who runs from angry bike couriers just like the rest of us.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
For a Jackie Chan movie, it was disappointing. Sure, Chan is a wizard at playing the goofy but deadly karate-chopping badass. However, something was missing. It could have been the lack of on-screen chemistry between Chan and co-star Hewitt.
Maybe it's that Hewitt is just so unlikable in this film that it becomes impossible to think of anything else. Her character is whiney, mean - not in a funny way - and exudes an aura of trying too hard to be sexy. Remove her and you have a butt-kicking Jackie Chan classic, full of his trademark humor, plot holes and amazing stunts.
I think that judging a Chan movie based on its acting is a little unfair. We all know he has no problem doing his own stunts, breaking a leg during production, or even getting mangled by the press about his allegedly poor performances.
The fact remains though that in every movie that he has done, he has delivered exactly what we expect in a movie with his name attached to it - action, which "The Tuxedo" has plenty of.
The actual movie wasn't that great. Then again, Jackie Chan movies have never been a lot more than excuses for the exceptional martial artist to strut his stuff. Throughout I was confused about his relationship with Devlin. I had no idea who knew what about anything, and where that fit into the plot.
At one point Hewitt's character seemed oblivious to fact that the tuxedo had any special powers. The next, she knew everything about it. To say this movie had a few loose ends would be like saying World War II was a minor conflict.
Altogether, "The Tuxedo" was exactly what I expected. If the entire world was made up of guys like me, we would say it is worth the eight bucks. But, since not everyone can overlook a few major plot holes, some horrible acting and just enjoy the action, I have to say you might get better use out of your money at the bar.
