Movie Review: Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

I have mixed feelings about Silver Linings Playbook. To be sure, it had several laugh out loud moments that felt more meritorious than the cheap laughs achieved in most modern comedies. But the drama was somewhat confusing, and it could either be the case that the writers created a deep and subtle psychological struggle or they were utterly conventional. The main character, Pat (played by Bradley Cooper), has recently been released from a mental institution to which he was dedicated after committing a violent act towards his wife's lover. His motivation throughout the film is to improve himself and regain the affection of his wife. Along the way he meets a similarly eccentric woman, Katniss (played by Katniss), with whom he agrees to help in her dance contest.

Here is why I say the drama is confusing: from the beginning, Pat's quest to woo his wife seems to be a lost cause, and one can reasonably expect that at some point he will become romantically interested in Katniss. [SPOILER ALERT.] He does, but not explicitly until the very end of the movie. It's as if he realizes what the audience has known the entire movie: he doesn't have a chance of reconciling with his wife, but there's a readily available female right in front of him (who happens to be like 15 years younger, but whatever).

I'm also unsure how I feel about the plot element created by Pat's father (played by Robert De Niro) who is a compulsive gambler and decides to put a high stakes bet upon the dance performance of Pat and Katniss. It is reminiscent of the fact that people place wagers on the outcome of events they otherwise have no interest in. Is it the case that the plot absent the betting lacks an adequate amount of tension that the writers feel that they have to add more by having gambling involved? There is an argument to be made that it is: we all know Pat isn't going to get his wife back (as if his success as a dancer had any bearing on it) and they don't expect to be serious competitors but want to pass a minimum score (stipulated by the bet). So, the jury is still deliberating whether this was a legitimate tactic or a cheap way to create more tension.

Lastly, Chris Tucker once again demonstrates why he deserves an award for best supporting actor. We look forward to his next buddy cop film.

DVDs We Love: Rush Hour 2 (2001)

This should be an easy transition: as you know, we've spent the last few weeks on Code Redd Net revisiting some Classic Chan films. Now we return with a new recurring feature, one that aims to spotlight some of the best, most valuable and most interesting DVDs/Blu-rays on the market. Too often films released for home viewing provide little incentive for purchase beyond the quality of the film it contains. Our purpose here is to draw your attention to those discs laden with special features, special features that make repeated viewings worthwhile, that keep the DVD/Blu-ray in question spinning in your player for years. To that end, we can find no better way to kick things off than by returning to Rush Hour 2. In addition to being a beloved CRN Awards winner and longtime site/blog staple, it's also one of our favorite DVDs ever released. Find out why below.

Ricky, you sly son of a gun, just look at you.

Rush Hour 2 is not the best Jackie Chan film. In fact, looking over the items chronicled in our recent Classic Chan series, arguably eight of those ten films feature better fights, better stunts, and overall a more competent use of Chan's physical abilities. What those films lack, though, is the sheen of Rush Hour 2, its efficiency of storytelling and style. Undeniably, Rush Hour 2 is lean Hollywood filmmaking, all its excesses contained in 90 minutes and rounded off by the credits. Hollywood is at its best when taking something mediocre and inflating it to the absolute limit, usually via astronomical production values. So while Chan's choreography is below average in this film, so much else around him is of a higher quality (everything from the lighting, the sets, the cameras, to the film stock itself) that we can temporarily forget the handcuffs put on our favorite action star. It's a decent enough compromise for the Chan enthusiast and the casual viewer, I suppose.

Besides the quality of the film, the DVD for Rush Hour 2 really delivers the goods. As part of the abandoned Infinifilm brand of New Line, the Rush Hour 2 disc is loaded with stuff:

• Commentary with director Brett Ratner and writer Jeff Nathanson
• Featurettes: "Making Magic Out of Mire", "Fashion of Rush Hour 2", "Jackie Chan's Hong Kong Introduction", "Culture Clash: West Meets East", "Language Barrier", "Attaining International Stardom", "Kung Fu Choreography".
• Evolution of a Scene
• Visual Effects Deconstruction
• Deleted Scenes/Outtakes (with optional director/writer commentary)
• Theatrical Trailers
• Cast and Crew bios
• Fact Track
• DVD-rom with a script you can read alongside film
• as well as the usual plethora of language/subtitle options and chapter selection

This may not sound that impressive at first, but the DVD's Infinifilm option integrates almost every one of these elements into the film's presentation. Menus pop up onscreen, inviting you to watch short clips, snipped from the full featurettes listed above that deal directly with the scene.

In this example, the massage parlor fight is supplemented with material describing its construction. Play the clip and the disc returns you to the film at exactly the same point you were at before. Though the disc obviously needs a few seconds to gather up the selected data after you click an option, and a few more to get you back, it's nothing too jarring; and it helps that the clips are usually interesting and engage you more thoroughly with the film. Certainly the Infinifilm feature could become annoying for those watching the film for the first time, but it's not the default option on the disc. For those looking for a reason to watch it again, though, it's a perfect means to do so.

Outside of the Infinifilm, you can access all the supplemental material individually and in full. Though there's plenty of flatulent industry fluff, like "Fashion of Rush Hour 2" and "Making Magic Out of Mire", many of the other features are worth watching. Evolution of a Scene, essentially rehearsal footage of some of the more expensive/explosive scenes, is an interesting opportunity to see Jackie's method of choreography at work. I always appreciate the inclusion of deleted scenes, though in this case they were clearly deleted for a reason; same goes for the outtakes, really.

Brett Ratner and his screenwriter writer provide feature-length commentary and it's mostly banal stuff that gets regurgitated elsewhere on the disc. There's a bit too much gossip, and way too much Hollywood name-dropping, but on occasion they provide an insight or tow. One of the more intriguing special features is the Fact Track (above), an option that places a running stream of incidental notes on the lower part of the screen. These include useful biographical bits on Chan, Tucker, and the minor or incidental characters that surround them, as well as trivia regarding the scenery, shooting locations, and Snoopy's height relative to Tucker's racially-charged estimation of Chan's height. Like the Infinifilm option, though perhaps less exciting visually, Fact Track is yet another way to make a repeated viewing of the film seem novel. Strangely enough, it's possible to watch the film with the Fact Track, commentary, and Infinifilm features all running at the same time! It's a bit too much for the senses, I think, but it nonetheless proves that the disc is loaded not only with special features, but with a highly customizable engagement with them.

All things considered, the Rush Hour 2 Infinifilm DVD is one loaded with replay value. By my count, there's at least four-five different ways to watch the film: by itself, with Infinifilm, with commentary, with the fact track, and with some combination of the above options. This is in addition to the standalone full features accessible via the menu. It's too bad New Line gave up on the Infinifilm brand, because I wish all my DVDs/Blu-rays had this kind of depth.

Get the DVD on Amazon for $.01 right here (and make sure you follow the link to the Infinifilm product specifically, as there's another, stripped-down and feature-less version of the disc in circulation).

We're Busy

"Excuse me, but don't you mean gettin' busy?"

Enjoy this picture of Ricky Tan; he's a busy man, like us. We know November has been a lean month at Code Redd Net, but we promise to have some exciting, new content for you in December. Posts, podcasts, all that. Keep watching the skies.

Rush Hour 4?

I knew the series was on the downslide, but damn.

"Found no rice, but only explosions."

Rush Hour 2 Redux

Starring Mos Def and Jack Black, of course.

Movie Review: Rush Hour 3 (2007)

Thankfully, Chris Tucker dialed down the high-pitched yelling (mostly) in Rush Hour 3. Sure, he still acts like an ill-disciplined and insecure child, he feels as if he has to hit on anything with two legs and long hair (and you should see his reaction when he discovers that the woman he is about to score with is only wearing a wig), but at least he's quieter this time around, even if he insists on being offensive. And you would never make the same complaints about Jackie Chan. In the first Rush Hour, Chan came to LA and worked in tandem with Tucker to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Chinese diplomat. In 2, Tucker vacationed in Hong Kong with Chan and solved a mystery involving the Triads and counterfeit "superbills." Now, in this third installment, our duo head to Paris to protect a woman who has access to information which could finally dismantle the Triads. Somewhere along the way we are introduced to Chan's brother, Kenji; of course, he has to fight him in the climax of the film set (where else?) in the Eiffel Tower. If you think about these films in order, you will see a steady drop in the quality and quantity of Chan's famous stunt work. We forgive this in the second film because of our aforementioned affectation for it (due to outside factors, of course), but Chan fans have so little to look forward to in Rush Hour 3: his fight with his brother is fun, but nothing else really stands out, except for an inexplicable dramatic increase in the number of Chris Tucker fights, which are obviously of a lesser quality than Chan's work. So while this is a decent enough way to round out series, it is a bit of whimper. Jackie Chan devotees will be disappointed, but more casual action fans could find worse things to do.

Friday From the Archives: Rush Hour 2 (2001)

Every Friday we celebrate the heritage of Code Redd Net by posting a retro-review from our considerable back catalogue of embarrassingly naive, but nonetheless entertaining and heartfelt, movie and game reviews. Please pardon the prose; most of these articles were written in our immediately post-pubescent years. Hopefully you find them as enjoyable as we do.

Rush Hour 2 is a curious thing for us at Code Redd Net. In many ways it's a pretty dumb (though innocuous) flick, but it has memories for us. Not only was it our first movie review back when we launched the site in late 2001, but it was the instigating force behind the website itself. The nostalgia we feel gleefully blinds our objective judgment. In this case, affect goes beyond the text. And looking at my review (rewritten in 2005, I believe) I see that I had this same idea in mind when reexamining the movie. Looking forward to our tenth anniversary in a few short weeks, I want to make sure that Rush Hour 2 is understood as a significant part of our history.

"You must be forewarned that my opinion on Rush Hour 2 may be slightly slanted. Objectively, I have a difficult time reviewing the film, because the memories I have of it are closely tied with a friendship, and the enjoyable time we had seeing the movie in theaters. But, just to be impartial, I'll try to review the film based solely on it merit, not personal recollections, however awesome they may be. No promise, though. The story begins with the bombing of the American embassy in Hong Kong, which kills two U.S. customs agents involved in uncovering a ring of smugglers controlling "superbills," extremely well-made counterfeit $100 bills. Naturally, Detective Lee and Detective Carter, portrayed by Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, respectively, become involved in the case. Together they track down Ricky Tan, the head of the Triads, a deadly posse of thugs from China. From that rather basic premise, we segue into the action scenes, which unfortunately are very disappointing, at least in comparison to some of the other films Chan has done. Rush Hour 2 was my introduction to Jackie Chan, and in searching out his previous films afterward, I've found that this is some of his weakest work, as far as the martial arts are concerned. The humor is fine, but not great, and the pace is exceptionally swift. I just cannot help my bias, but I find myself really enjoying Rush Hour 2 every time I watch it. Definitely not the best work of Jackie Chan, but a really pleasant action film all-around."

Finest Fights: Rush Hour 2 (2001)

Bringing you the best fight scenes available on YouTube, every Tuesday afternoon.

Enjoy two distinctly different fights from one of our favorite films, Rush Hour 2:

Movie Review: Rush Hour (1998)

Rush Hour 2 may be our sentimental favorite, but the original certainly has its strengths. For one, Jackie Chan's stunt work is far superior here than in the sequel. Though neither film really lets Chan's prowess completely loose (that is saved for less mainstream kung-fu fare, like First Strike and Who Am I?, where the story is tailored more specifically to showcasing action first and story second) in Rush Hour he has considerably more exciting and plentiful action scenes. You might consider this film (and its sequels, as well as other films made in the same buddy-cop-action genre, such as Shanghai Noon and Knights) a sort of primer for the uninitiated, and from here you can tackle his more straightforward kung-fu films if interested; there you will find Chan unshackled by the demands of Hollywood and its emphasis on dialogue. But the humor is brisk and lively in this one, though Chris Tucker is far more annoying here than in subsequent entries, spending his half of the screen time either yelling or reinforcing outrageous stereotypes, and quite often both simultaneously. The contrast between the high-pitched Tucker and the stoic determination of Chan is effective enough, though, and overall the film is extremely efficient storytelling. Recommended for Chan fans, but you might want to see First Strike or Who Am I? immediately afterwords if you want to really see what all the fuss is about.