You couldn’t care less about the characters in Skiptrace. Even so, Jackie Chan is a veteran and has his legion of fans who look forward to his every release. Let us find out if you should even bother checking out this one in the Skiptrace film review.
Skiptrace Film Review – The Story
Bennie Chan (Jackie Chan) is a duty-driven poker face cop. He is chasing the elusive drug lord who is behind his partner’s death. The latter’s daughter (Fan Bingbing), now raised by Bennie as his own, is in trouble. Connor Watts (Johnny Knoxville), a flamboyant American gambler has swindled off a large sum from a casino. The casino’s proprietor thinks that Bennie’s daughter, who works there, is hand in glove with him.
They tell her to find Connor or face the consequence. Meanwhile, the Russian mafia isn’t too happy with Connor either. He is unwilling to marry the daughter of the mob, who is bearing his child. As a captive, Connor faces certain death if he doesn’t agree to marry her. It is up to Bennie to rescue Connor from the clutches of the Russians and save his daughter’s life.
After Bennie manages to retrieve Connor from the Russians, he sets out to bring him back to the casino. However, on the road trip, he learns that Connor knows about the drug lord behind his partner’s death. If Bennie can only get Connor to testify against him, he can nail the man and get his revenge.
Skiptrace Film Review – The Negatives
Like I said before, the execution of the story has absolutely nothing going for it to make you even remotely care for any of the characters. As the cast includes many Chinese actors, the accent is rather difficult to follow at times. That just worsens things. Also, there is more than a fair chance that you have seen most of the scenes portrayed in Skiptrace played out before, only in a much better movie.
Skiptrace Film Review – The Positives
You are pretty much left holding onto straws here. Skiptrace is barely watchable, courtesy some decent on-screen bromance from Jackie Chan and Johnny Knoxville. There are some funny instances in the film involving the duo, like when they have to spend the night with the Mongolians, which manage to evoke mild laughter. However, one only wishes that there were more such hilarious moments as Skiptrace is otherwise devoid of anything substantial to hold your interest.
Final Word
If you can sit through the almost unbearable first forty-five minutes or so, you will certainly get through the rest of this movie. However, this one you can safely skip and instead watch an old Jackie Chan movie. However, if you do want to see Skiptrace, you can always catch it on cable TV.
Stars: 1.5/5
What do you think?