"I know, let's make a buddy-cop movie with academy award winner Anthony Hopkins and stalwart funnyman Chris Rock. It'll be great, all we gotta do is just point the cameras at these guys and watch the chemistry ensue. It'll be massive at the box office."
"Yeah, um, sure. Sounds great. Roll the cameras."
Never have I a felt so cheated leaving a movie theatre. I was dubious enough going in (Chris Rock & Anthony Hopkins? They shouldn't even be in the same sentence) but I was almost raging by the time the credits rolled. Everything about this movie stinks. The storyline is beyond stupid. In fact, the storyline has it's own fucking dimension of stupidity because there isn't enough stupid in this one to define it. Chris Rock has a twin brother who works in the CIA. Chris is unaware that he has a brother. Brother gets killed during a CIA operation, just before he was about to do a major deal with some terrorists. The CIA need the deal done, so they call on Chris Rock to stand in on his brothers behalf "with hilarious consequences."
Rock's character is the wise cracking, homeboy, hustler dude from some keep darky down neigborhood.
Hopkins in the big serious CIA dude committed to turning Rock's character into that of his dead brother.
From streetwise punk to CIA sleuth in 9 days. Oh the hilarity of it all!
The on screen banter between Hopkins and Rock is ridiculous at best, but worsens progressively as the movie plods on.
Action - Chris Rock does something funny, Anthony Hopkins furrows his brow - Car Chase - Chris Rock does something funny, Anthony Hopkins furrows his brow - Shootout - Chris Rock does something funny, Anthony Hopkins furrows his brow - End Of Movie.
It's almost like someone got Jerry Brucheimer, Joel Shcumacer, Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins, put them in a room and said: "Hey guys, thanks for coming. Here's the deal, we have a shit load of money, a diabolical plot, a shite concept and we want to make the worst movie of all time. Who's in?"
Here's what some other people have to say:
"The umpteenth summer skinny dip in Jerry Bruckheimer's putrid pond of retread action twaddle."
-- Walter Chaw, FILM FREAK CENTRAL
"Scores no points for originality, wit, or intelligence. ItÂ’s a cookie-cutter movie, a cut-and-paste job."
-- Mark Dujsik, MARK REVIEWS MOVIES
"This bizarre, botched spy thriller is bad enough to rank as a waste of time and money; it should have remained on the shelf."
-- Susan Granger, WWW.SUSANGRANGER.COM
"Welcome to my church, where we worship money," says the film's Czech ghoul. Words fit for Bruckheimer."
-- Ed Gonzalez, SLANT MAGAZINE
Don't rush out and watch this movie with the attitude "Hey, it's sounds so bad, it's gotta be good!". It's just plain bad, nothing else. There's a couple of songs on the soundtrack from Tricky, Outkast and Blu Cantrell that have some redeeming value, but they do nothing for this rotten egg of a movie.
Avoid like the plague.