By Ryan Lavoie

Each week, I will look at a movie that is currently in theaters or available to stream and give some reasons why people should watch it. This isn’t necessarily a film critique, rather, an overview of what I think is enjoyable about the film, and why it’s worth seeing. This week, we’ll look back at the comedy classic, Rush Hour, starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker.

With recent news that Rush Hour 4 could be in the works, I thought it was a good time to go back to the original and pay homage to one of the funnier series of comedy movies out there. The movie that started it all was Rush Hour. Rush Hour is a buddy cop movie, but it quite possibly is the funniest. The charisma between Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker is very important and successful. The two guys, coming from completely different backgrounds both in real life and in the movie, form a awkwardly brilliant pairing full of laughs and quips. One can’t think of this movie or any of the Rush Hourswithout hearing Carter yell “Lee! Damn Lee!” at his partner.  I give credit to the writers because they needed to utilize Jackie Chan’s strength (action sequences) with Chris Tucker’s (loud mouthing comedy) and they ultimately joined the two successfully. Not that it matters too much in a comedy, but there is a decent storyline in the movie so that it is not two guys just aimlessly wondering looking for the next way they can crack a joke. That would continue to be the formula for the franchise as they would make a trilogy, but it was done best right here, with the original Rush Hour.

Rush Hour, along with its two sequels, are currently available