KNOCK OFF Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rob Schneider, Lela Rochon, Michael Wong, Paul Sorvino Director: Tsui Hark Screenplay: Steven E. De Souza Australian theatrical release: March 18, 1999 Reviewed by Luke Buckmaster
On the Buckmaster scale of 0 stars (bomb), to 5 stars (a masterpiece): 1 star
The films of Jean-Claude Van Damme are not exactly listed on the AFI's top 100, but they sure have provided us with a few chuckles and hoots. John Woo's 1993 piece Hard Target built at least a couple of genuinely entertaining scenes, and even 1998's Legionnaire had too much energy and atmosphere to be ridden off completely. But even Van Damme - a veteran of bad movies - deserves better than Knock Off. Writer Steven De Souza gave Beverly Hills Cop III charm and excitement, but none of that is on show here. Knock Off bumbles and fumbles its way through a messy plot, advancing from each dreary subplot to the next with no hint of a coherent storyboard. It's almost as if director Hark Tsui's plan was to baffle viewers so he could disguise the film's paper-thin scripting.
Granted, there are some nice touches. The editing and camera work is sometimes stylish (especially in the first half), and the screen absorbs Van Damme's lively presence with appropriate egotistical flair. But the visual novelties of Knock Off quickly wear thin, leaving virtually nothing to counterbalance. To make matters worse, the few scenes in which Knock Off succeeds on a visual level are derivative, and serve no relevance to the central story. A well-staged chase scene through the streets of Hong Kong is pretty much pointless, as is a Jackie Chan like idea to position Van Damme amongst a building full of attacking Asians.
Marcus Ray (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a tough but friendly meathead, works as a sales representative for a jeans company in Hong Kong. His partner is Tommy Hendricks (Rob Schneider), who is a loud mouth wimp. Through one of the film's flimsy plot connections, these two suddenly find themselves in the midst of a worldwide conspiracy. This conspiracy involves the use of micro bombs the size of watch batteries (which, for some strange reason, produce green flames). Ray and Hendricks risk their lives to stop the possible worldwide distribution of these new devastating gadgets.
There's nothing direly wrong with Van Damme as an actor; his energetic roles are entirely welcome in a film of this nature. But his dialogue, of course, suffers from intoxicatingly simplistic formation, to the point where he becomes little more than a walking talking joke. And he isn't the only one. Rob Schneider is given the tough job of providing comic relief with only one or two one-liners that are actually funny. Chris Tucker provided a nice bit of playful acting in Rush Hour, as did Steve Buscemi in Armageddon. Whereas those performers had punchy dialogue aiding them, Schneider is witless and unfunny - he's just plain irritating.
Just when action films appeared to be heading in the right direction, along comes Knock Off, the dumbest film this side of Species 2. Sure - many bad movies are entertaining pieces of cinematic fluff - but this is not one of them. Irritating and silly, Knock Off is the kind of movie that gives bad movies a bad name.
Read more of my reviews at In Film Australia http://infilmau.iah.net
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