An average movie

Honestly, I wasn't expecting much from this but many movies starring Jackie Chan are broadcasted on the Dutch channels and my step-son Nick has a weak spot for this actor so we ended up watching it. Contrary to most of the movies with Jackie Chan, this one actually had some potential as it was actually gritty (it was even R rated) and it was nice to see Jackie Chan trying something darker for once. Unfortunately, the whole thing was still terribly underwhelming as, even though the tone was indeed darker, they still managed to make it look rather goofy and I never had the feeling that they took the whole thing really seriously. Imagine watching 'Heat' with Al Pacino or Robert de Niro throwing a joke every 5 minutes. It just doesn't work or maybe I just don't get those actions flicks from Hong Kong as it seems compulsory there to mix some badass action scenes with some rather weak oneliners and poor jokes. It's quite a shame as, for once, Jackie Chan's character was really under pressure and I wonder how the end-result would have been with a better director. To conclude, I have seen worse but it was still a rather weak action flick and I don't think it is really worth a look.

5/10