Knock Off (1998)

Too much of everything

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Knock Off is the film that marked JCVD's rapid decline as a Hollywood star. It does looks like a cheap knock off of a martial arts action comedy movie. I can only guess that Jackie Chan rejected the original script.Set in Hong Kong in the eve of the British handover of the colony to the Chinese, which in no way explains why the place is crawling with CIA operatives. Jean Claude Van Damme plays Marcus Ray who is involved in fake fashion designs with Tommy Hendricks (Rob Schneider) as well as taking part in Rickshaw races.However Ray and Hendricks must stop the Russian mafia who are smuggling fake goods with micro bombs inserted inside.The plot is a confusing mess, so are the fight scenes. The special effects are bad with green smoke and explosions. The acting is hammy, by the late 1990s it was obvious that only Pauly Shore was below Schneider in marking a film as comedy death if one of them appeared in it.

Knock Off (1998): Dir: Tsui Hark / Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rob Schneider, Lela Rochon, Paul Sorvino, Carman Lee: The title is absolutely correct. Everyone tries to knock each other off while viewers struggle to stay awake. The story is simply an excuse for Jean-Claude Van Damme to physically beat the tar out of bad guys and further prove that acting isn't his strong point. Tiny button shaped bombs are placed in dolls and phony salesman Van Damme and Rob Schneider get involved after a friend is murdered. Tsui Hark handles the action but he fails to drag a good performance out of Van Damme or Schneider. Hark and Van Damme previously collaborated to bring the world another action embarrassment called Double Team. Together, these films can be strapped together and sold cheap in the bargain bin at the local supermarket. Schneider does as expected and that is to provide horrible comic relief. Lela Rochon has the misfortune of playing damsel in distress because she just happened to be within arms length of the producers during casting. Also wasting time is Paul Sorvino. No point but to entertain senseless violence. Double Team was a stupid movie so it should come as no surprise that Knock Off is just as dumb. I wish they would knock it off and write a decent script, or at least give viewers the option of knocking the film off with several blows of a baseball bat. Score: 2 / 10

Hong Kong director Tsui Hark (Once Upon A Time In China 1, II, III and V) first worked with Jean-Claude Van Damme on the incredibly daft Dennis Rodman vehicle Double Team, which was about as insane as action cinema gets. Knock Off sees the director and martial arts star once again teaming up to deliver a movie that simply has to be seen to be believed.Van Damme plays 'King of the Knock Offs' Marcus Ray, a shady businessman based in Hong Kong. When he and his partner Tommy (Rob Schneider) accept an order of counterfeit jeans to be shipped to the U.S., they become unwittingly involved in a plot by evil Russians to hold America to ransom, each pair of trousers containing a tiny micro-bomb that can be detonated by remote control.Knock Off rattles along at breakneck speed, the daft plot becoming more and more ridiculous with each and every scene, and with numerous characters switching sides throughout, the film can be a little hard to follow at times; thankfully, Tsui Hark compensates for his unnecessarily convoluted narrative by ensuring that the action is as exhilarating as possible, with brilliantly choreographed fight scenes and death defying stunts galore, including a wonderful rickshaw race through the streets of Kowloon and a breath-taking battle on board a freight ship where the massive metal containers prove to be just as dangerous as the enemy.Hark enhances his already bonkers action further with highly innovative visuals, the viewer presented with a dizzying array of impressive sweeping camera-work, inventive POV shots and creative camera angles that ensure maximum excitement. As far as the acting goes (as if that really matters), performances range from the good (Lela Rochon as sexy, sassy CIA agent Karen Lee), to the irritating (Rob Schneider doing his obnoxious comedic sidekick schtick), to the forgettable (Paul Sorvino phoning it in as CIA boss Harry Johanson), to the wooden (JCVD displaying his usual limited range).Sadly, Knock Off wasn't too well received at the box office, fans of the Muscles from Brussels obviously struggling with the film's crazy Asian style—a shame, because I would have loved to have seen Hark and Van Damme work together at least one more time.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

**SPOILERS**Mind boggling action movie that takes place on the eve of the British colony city of Hong Kong being handed over to the Red Chinese. The movie is about this group of Russian international mobsters who plan to blackmail the world with thousands of button, or micro, bombs. The Russians hide them in knockoff, phony high priced and name item, clothes and electrical equipment as well as toys. Then threaten to detonate them if they aren't paid, like cable TV, a monthly fee of 100 million dollars. Jean-Clude Van Damme is Marcus Ray a shady businessman who exports knockoff running shoes and jeans who gets involved up to his neck in the action. This happens when it's found out that his partner in crime the lovable and wise-cracking Tommy Hendricks, Rob Schneider, is an undercover CIA agent planning to get the goods on him, as well as his associates, in the illegal knockoff business.It soon becomes evident that knockoffs aren't the only headache on the minds of the CIA. It's found that their, the knockoff clothes and toys, are being used as explosives by the Russian mobster and suddenly Ray becomes a good guy in stopping, together with Hendricks, that from happening. Still Ray is hamstrung by ambitious CIA agent Karen Lee, Lela Rochon, who's playing double-agent in the film. This confuses both Ray & Hndricks to the point where all thee almost end up shooting each other.***SPOILER ALERT***It turns out that the person behind this evil and grandiose plan is non other then the CIA chief in charge of covert Hong Kong operations himself chubby Harry Johnson, Paul Sorvino, who together with even chubbier Hong Kong crime kingpin Slim, Glen Chin,are working together with the evil Russians in this crazy and off the wall criminal venture. The mindless action is almost non-stop in the movie with Ray going from rickshaw races to food fights and warehouse shootouts and finally a showdown with the Russians. This happens on an outgoing freighter loaded with bomb laden ripoffs headed for US Pacific port cities to unload and, by remote satellite control, activate them.People in the movie seem to be killed over and over again coming back for more like walking dead zombies especially the Russian mobsters. Who have, for what at first seems like no reason at all,hoods over their heads. Later you realize that it, the hoods, were just there so you won't see or recognize them coming back to get themselves killed, by Ray & Co, all over again sometimes as much as three or four times. The leader of the Slavic mobsters himself is done in a number of times by both Ray & Lee only to come back for more. Thats until Ray, out of sheer frustration, finally finishes him off much like he would have done to a vampire. But not with the usual wooden stake driven through his heart but with a ten ton steel cargo container dropped square on top of his head!All kinds of wild and far out zany camera angles make you dizzy following the non-stop action scenes with bad guy CIA turncoat Johnson getting the worst of it. Johnson gets knocked around all over the place then set on fire, with a bottle of deadly sulfuric acid, and then killed in a freighter explosion. Just when you thought the movie and Johnson were history he again killed in another explosion in his Hong Kong hideout. Johnson who at that point seemed to have come back from the dead has the same crazed and manic look in both scenes in both scenes that he was killed.