RUMBLE IN THE BRONX
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: First-class acrobatics, second-class
comedy, a third-class plot. This is a pleasant
enough film for sitting back and watching some
incredible physical feats, but there is little else
of quality in the film. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4)
Take this review from whence it comes. I am absolutely floored by the mental agility of Thomas More in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. The skill to fight with agility just has never been one for which I have much appreciation. I suppose I am about equally impressed with a good martial artist and a good juggler. I can appreciate that each can perform with what appears to be a high degree of skill. I will watch each for the moment they are performing and then move on without envying or even being impressed too much by either. So perhaps I am the wrong person to see a Jackie Chan film, whose plot is little more than an excuse to string together fighting sequences.
Keung (Jackie Chan) is a prize-winning martial artist in Hong Kong who comes to the United States to attend his uncle's wedding. He quickly discovers that his uncle intends to sell the Asian grocery the uncle owns. Keung find himself attracted to the new owner and decides to stick around and set up the grocery. This means defending the woman from a gang of cartoonish bikers who prey on the grocery. When one of the bikers steals some loot from some apparent Mafia types, the fight becomes a three-way battle.
One of the problems of the script is that Keung's abilities seem inconsistent and seem to come and go. It is unclear why in some scenes he seems so easily defeated and in others he seems unbeatable. Nor is it clear why once the street gang has discovered a winning strategy for beating Keung, they never again use it against him. Also, we see early on that he has only limited ability to dodge flying objects, so presumably he has even less ability to dodge bullets. Yet while people threaten to shoot him, nobody actually tries it, even just to disable him. The appearance is that even Jackie Chan does not have moves for dodging a bullet that look convincing on camera and so the scriptwriter just does not let the situation arise.
Beyond the action scenes little attention was paid to production values. For just about every other aspect of the film the words that come to mind are "adequate" or "mediocre." There is little acting in the film and what is there is intended only to showcase Jackie Chan. Far more could be done with Chan, of course. The man has considerably more screen presence than either Steven Segal or Jean-Claude Van Damme. This film does what it can to capitalize off Chan's personality, but a larger budget, a more polished production, and above all a much better script are needed to make this a really professional product.
Ironically, the point of the film that generates the greatest emotions is the closing credits. Chan shows outtakes where stunts went wrong. It combines some of the best laughs of the film with some of its most poignant moments. We see two or three cases of actors performing stunts that go wrong and ending up being put in the back of an ambulance. One wonders if this practice does not frighten away prospective performers from appearing in so dangerous a film to shoot.
For those who, like me, have only a limited appreciation for Chan's athletic moves there is not much that this film offers. For people who have similar tastes to mine I rate RUMBLE IN THE BRONX a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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