Seen at: AMC Promenade in Westminster, Feb. 4 at 2:10 pm
A couple weeks ago I was having dinner with Agnes and Thor. I mentioned having seen this movie a month or so back. We all agreed that not only was Jackie Chan underrated, but that he is perhaps the best living cinematic dancer in the Classical masculine tradition of Gene Kelly.
One can see this latter aspect in several scenes in this movie, in particular during a chase-fight duet sequence with the Russian bad guy (played with hilarious tongue and cheek by Icelander Magnus Scheving (imDb). From this scene alone, one can see that Scheving was cast because of his ability to follow Chan in disguising Classical studio-era Hollywood dance as Postmodern martial arts combat.
That's the secret to understand Chan's real talent. One minute he's fluidly doing Kelly's unmistakable scissor leg swing over a metal staircase to chase the villain. A few minutes later, he's sliding down a drain pipe of a suburban home like Buster Keaton.
Here Chan plays about as goofy as role in as goofy a story as Kelly did in The Pirate (1948). The portrayal of the CIA is about as absurd as it gets. But who cares? It's too much fun.
Actually the story is deliciously Classical inside a Postmodern shell. Chan is paired with a pretty thirtysomething widow (Amber Valetta) with preteen children. Chan and the widow are boyfriend-girlfriend at the beginning. His girlfriend's children hate him because he is a typical Postmodern milquetoast man, a doormat for the assertive mother. Even the use of the term "boyfriend" in the movie seems to demote Chan's character to being like an extra child in the family, rather than the prospective man of the house.
But all this is just an act! In reality, in his job, Chan's character is a cool, confident superspy with amazing ninja talents who fights supervillains to save the world from destruction. Yet he cannot reveal this to his girlfriend or her children because to do so would compromise not only his own job secrecy, but would put them in physical danger. He resists all temptation to reveal who he is, even though it would put an end to the ego bruising that he takes. That, folks, is pretty much the very paradigm of honor for Classical heroes.
The story of course will force his hand. It must, for the secrecy he is required to enforce is at odds with the Classical (and Postmodern) principle that there can be no such secrets inside conjugal relations. Before he can become the step father, he must come clean to his wife, and through the extension principle of remarriages, to the children as well.
The bad guys in the story thus function as the plot device to force him to reveal his real self to his new family.
Can you see how subtly brilliant this movie is? It didn't get much hoopla at the time, and I suspected that in part it was because the idea of the "perfect stepdad" is just too bizarre for many people to swallow these days, especially disgruntled divorced women who bring their children to places like the Westminster Promenade for matinees. Yet any kid oriented movie will live a thousand lives on Redbox and Netflix, so the producers will recoup their money many times over. No tears must be shed for this.
And why should they? This is Classical comedy!
After talking about Chan, I posed a follow-up question to Agnes and Thor, to get their opinions. Consider this: everyone knows that Astaire and Kelly, in no particular order of 1 and 2, are the two greatest male dancers Hollywood has given us over the last century of movie making. My question: among men, who is third?
Agnes suggested Russ Tamblyn, who is certainly on my short list. I stated that I lean towards Groucho Marx.
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