Knock Off (1998)

Every once in a while, I get in a kick of checking out films that I hadn't seen from some of my favorites in Hollywood like I did with Zoey Deutch, Robert De Niro, and Jean-Claude Van Damme (Swelter) who happens to be the subject for today's film that I chose. In the late 1990's, he released a lot of films that I just never got around to seeing so I decided that for today I would check out 1998's Knock Off which was directed by Tsui Hark (Once Upon A Time In China). Van Damme plays fashion designer Marcus Ray who just wants his product to be known around the world. Someone though is creating knock off versions of his jeans with bombs in them so he has to team up with a CIA agent to figure out who is behind it before it's too late. The film also stars Rob Schneider (Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo) as Tommy Hendricks, Lela Rochon (Any Given Sunday) as Karen Lee, Paul Sorvino (The Rocketeer) as Harry Johanson, Glen Chin (Natural Born Killers) as Skinny, Wyman Wong (12 Golden Ducks) as Eddie Wang, Carman Lee (Forbidden City Cop) as Detective Ling Ho, Michael Wong (Transformers: Age Of Extinction) as Han, Moses Chan (Black Mask) as Officer Fong, and  Ray Nicholas (The Dark Knight Rises) as Karl.

This is probably one of my least favorite Van Damme films that I have ever seen and that is saying something because he has been apart of some bad ones. I felt like this film was trying to be a knock off of a Jackie Chan film and it just didn't work for me at all because it's not what I wanted. I know that Rob Schneider was supposed to be the comedic relief in the film playing alongside the action star, but he was honestly my least favorite thing about the film besides the weird editing choices that went in to it as well. There was not one single scene in the whole film where I was like wow that was funny from Rob and I am surprised because he has been in some great comedies, but he should have stayed away from this one. The story itself is a little whacked out too because you have Russians and CIA all fighting for the same thing and they tried to do the whole double cross agent thing and they failed because it was absolutely stupid. I am a completest because once I start something I have to finish it, but this was honestly one film that I wish I had stopped watching because it sucked. The only cool thing about the film is the final battle/fight sequence that happens at the end where Van Damme is sliding on a slip and slide while his little hand gun shoots bad guys like they were hit by a shotgun. That was the only good thing which means that I am going to give the film an D- for a final grade and I never have given those out before. If an F is 65 that means the film got a 66 just to put it into comparison.