Based on Brett Ratner’s 1998 Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker actioner, “Rush Hour” follows a by-the-book Hong Kong detective paired with a rule-bending LAPD detective.
The TV version comes to us from writer-producers Bill Lawrence (“Spin City,” “Scrubs,” “Cougar Town,” “Surviving Jack,” “Ground Floor,” “Undateable”) and Blake McCormick (“Cougar Town”).
(Hey, remember CBS’ “Martial Law” starring Sammo Hung and Arsenio Hall? It hit CBS exactly eight days after “Rush Hour” hit cinemas and also felt like a TV version of “Rush Hour,” only less authorized.)
... the TV series arrives about 12 years too late, with a dated racial dynamic and, most damning, a lack of chemistry between its stars …
... surely there is room for this thing, which though it lacks the star power and acrobatic wit of its theatrical model, makes up for it in other ways. …
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
... A paint-by-numbers action-comedy …
... falls somewhere between the monotone mediocrity of “Odd Couple” and the bleak banality of “Minority Report.” … the pair have to contend with scripts that even audiences in the late ’90s would have deemed stale, ones that hit the same jokes repeatedly and have a nasty habit of pigeonholing characters based on race and gender. …
... a dispiriting, derivative buddy-cop comedy … does nothing to subvert a single stereotype or cliche. …
... diluted and fairly charmless, but it's certainly no worse than what the movies already did to the brand. …
... perhaps unavoidably traffics in hoary stereotypes, even if Hires, a stand-up comic, dials down the clowning from Tucker’s much-lampooned performance. …
10 p.m. Thursday. CBS.
