Knock Off (1998) Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rob Schneider, Paul Sorvino, Lela Rochon, Michael Wong. Directed by Tsui Hark. 90 minutes. Rated R, 0 stars (out of five stars)
Review by Ed Johnson-Ott, NUVO Newsweekly www.nuvo-online.com/film/ Archive reviews at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Edward+Johnson-ott To receive reviews by e-mail at no charge, send subscription requests to pbbp24a@prodigy.com
When the preview audience for "Knock Off" exited the theater, they were more demonstrative than any movie audience I have ever seen. Friends were taking turns trying to come up with the rudest possible one-liner to describe the movie. One young man held his arms above his head, making violent thumbs-down gestures with both hands while shouting, "Sucks! Sucks!" over and over. Most of the crowd simply walked out briskly, shaking their heads and loudly discussing how amazingly bad the film was. These people renewed my faith in humanity.
This piece will be relatively brief, because it seems foolish to spend more time writing the review for "Knock Off" than the authors spent writing the script. To put it as simply as possible, the film is, honest to God, one of the worst movies I have ever seen. So bad that it left me mesmerized; transfixed in some quasi-hypnotic state of disbelief.
While hyping the film to Entertainment Weekly, Jean-Claude Van Damme told interviewers that his cocaine addiction was at its worst during the filming of "Knock Off." It shows. While his body remains muscular, Van Damme's face looks pallid and his expression dazed. He sweats a lot during scenes where he is just standing around talking. He looks like a heart-attack waiting to happen. School administrators could radically cut down on student drug use simply by forcing the kids to watch this film. Of course, that could land the school in court, because making students sit through "Knock Off" would probably be ruled as corporal punishment.
Set in Hong Kong just prior to its return to Chinese rule, the story involves miniature explosives, cut-rate imitations of designer jeans, CIA agents, lots of mobsters chasing each other around and loads of explosions. The specifics don't matter - they certainly didn't to the filmmakers. "Knock Off" is merely a long series of horribly filmed stunts, punctuated by poorly delivered one-liners and incomprehensible plot mechanics.
It begins with Van Damme huffing and puffing while pulling Rob Schneider in a rickshaw race, while Schneider whips him with a dead eel and shouts "move that beautiful ass!" Why? I have no idea. Toy dolls blow up in the waters near the harbor. Paul Sorvino and Lela Rochon show up to snarl and chase everyone around. A grossly obese mobster spews threats. Cars, boats and giant Buddha's explode. Van Damme's stunt double fights dozens of men, while Schneider makes a vain attempt at being an action hero and wormy smart-ass at the same time. And Van Damme, bless his heart, tries to act in a performance so wooden that it makes Ben Stein look animated by comparison.
Meanwhile, director Tsui Hark uses a dizzying array of camera tricks to try and hide the movie's myriad flaws. He sends the lens zooming up the barrel of a gun to focus on the shooter. His cameras swoop, swirl, twist and turn, especially during the action scenes. In fact, Hark shoots the action scenes using so many close-ups that he actually mutes any impact or sense of excitement the scenes might have had. The whole thing plays like a substandard episode of the "Power Rangers," except the Rangers are better actors.
Here's hoping Jean-Claude Van Damme succeeds in keeping off cocaine. Here's hoping Rob Schneider goes back to doing straight comedy. And finally, here's hoping you have the common sense to stay as far away from "Knock Off" as possible.
© 1998 Ed Johnson-Ott
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews