THE TUXEDO ----------
Jimmy Tong's (Jackie Chan) speeding tickets have almost lost him his job as a cabbie, but oddly, they help procure him an unsolicited job as chauffeur to mysterious millionaire Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs, "The Patriot"). After a trip through a Burger King drive-thru, Tong saves Devlin from a car bomb, but Devlin's still badly injured, so he asks Tong to take his place by donning "The Tuxedo."
"The Tuxedo" is the first film I can recall to feature its (thankfully one) toilet joke before the opening credits roll. Typical of much of the humor in this film, it has little to do with the story. It's a true measure of Jackie Chan's charisma that he can keep a movie full of inept cliche afloat.
Tong discovers the power of the hi-tech tux (a partnered watch has control settings like 'attack,' 'shoot' and 'boogie down') fairly quickly, but it takes longer for him to realize that the Clark Devlin persona is a CSA agent code name that now belongs to him. To ratchet up the comedy, he's paired with greenhorn agent Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt) so that each can attempt to follow the other's lead. Tong begins by trying to avenge his beloved boss, who he believes fingered one Walter Strider, but in actuality the duo are up against Diedrich Banning (Ritchie Coster, "15 Minutes"), a bottled water magnate planning to introduce bacteria into the global water supply that induces thirst.
"The Tuxedo" begins (after those credits have run, anyway) with promise, as Chan and Isaacs exude buddy chemistry in their Green Hornet/Kato-like pairing, but once Isaacs is removed from the picture the film's narrative structure begins to go off the rails. Love-Hewitt appears to have some semblance of comic timing, but it is her introduction into the story that begins its downfall. Is the story incoherence the result of attaining her performance in the editing room or the result of inexperienced direction?
The screenplay (Michael J. Wilson and Michael Leeson) strains for laughs by including non sequiturs, such as having Del and fellow agent Steena (Debi Mazar) go to a shooting range for no other reason than to have male agents ogle their butts or for Tong to go to a canceled spy meet to give the password 'Nice rack' to the wrong woman. When Chan does his own thing, though, like trying to charm an art gallery clerk wearing a goofy grin and a Hooters tee or substituting on stage for James Brown, "The Tuxedo" delivers.
Debuting feature director Kevin Donovan (the Molson Canadian "The Rant" commercial campaign) uses some interesting camera angles (Chan reflected in a brass fixture, taxi action from the rear right wheel) but he can't smooth out the script conflicts. A gag involving a bug and a glass at film's climax is badly timed.
"The Tuxedo" should have been the vehicle for Chan that "The Mask" was for Jim Carrey. Alas, it's the man that makes the clothes.
C
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