Movie Review: Rush Hour 3

Distributor: New Line
Cast: Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Vinnie Jones, Roman Polanski and Max von Sydow
Director: Brett Ratner
Screenwriter: Jeff Nathanson
Producers: Roger Birnbaum, Andrew Z. Davis, Jonathan Glickman, Arthur M. Sarkissian and Jay Stern
Genre: Action/Comedy
Rating: PG-13 for sequences of action violence, sexual content, nudity and language
Running time: TBD
Release date: August 10


There’s a scene in Rush Hour where LAPD Detective James Carter (Chris Tucker) takes a call from the kidnappers of a Chinese consul’s daughter, who are demanding a $50 million-dollar ransom.

“Fifty million dollars?” Carter shouts into the phone. “Man, who do you think you kidnapped? Chelsea Clinton?”

The kidnappers go on to specify that they want exactly $20 million in $50-dollar bills, $20 million in $20-dollar bills and $10 million in $10-dollar bills.

Almost a decade later, the outrage that Tucker’s character expresses in that scene seems ironic considering the king’s ransom he demanded for starring in the third installment in the action/comedy film franchise.

Tucker hadn’t done a film in six years, but he had 25 million reasons to do Rush Hour 3.

New Line is betting the box office bank on the comedian, paying Tucker a reported $25 million to reprise his role as the motormouthed Detective James Carter—although there’s no word on exactly what denomination of bills were specified in the deal. (By comparison, co-star Jackie Chan is earning a reported $15 million.)

That makes the 34-year-old—whose only other starring roles were in, that’s right, Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2—the highest-paid actor in Hollywood.

Of course, New Line had plenty of reasons of its own to shell out—about 591.7 million, to be precise. That’s how much the original 1998 culture-clash cop comedy and its 2001 sequel earned in worldwide box-office receipts.

Rush Hour 3—which like the previous pictures, is directed by Brett Ratner— finds Chief Inspector Lee (Chan) and Detective Carter in Paris, which should give both characters ample opportunities to shout the comic catchphrase: “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?”

New Line is certainly hoping that audiences all over the world do exactly that, and laugh—all the way to the bank.


*This article is written by Chad Greene, officially published at www.boxoffice.com

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