Somebody wants Chris Tucker to be a star, and that somebody isn't just Chris Tucker. With an asking price of $7 million, a high-profile supporting role in The Fifth Element and even a bit-part in Jackie Brown, the stand-up comic has now been given his first leading role. Pray to God it's his last.
Money Talks is a highly unnecessary return to the black guy/white guy buddy movie. It treads ground already covered, re-covered and trampled to mud by such films as 48 Hours and Lethal Weapon. Mel Gibson and Danny Glover? Fair enough. Chris Tucker and Charlie Sheen? Talk about scraping (no, drilling through) the bottom of the barrel.
It's Tucker who makes this by-the-numbers chase flick unbearable. With his grating, rat-a-tat-a-tat monologues and his hyperactive body posturing, he's more irritating than a persistent, indestructible mosquito. He screeches, squeals, squirms and swears his way through 95 minutes of depressingly uninspired tat. There is no chemistry between him and co-star Sheen who, understandably, spends the whole movie looking deeply uncomfortable, as though he's trying to clench a large pineapple between his butt cheeks.
Is there anything good about Money Talks? Well, there may be some enjoyment to be gleaned from it, if any of the following appeal: coldly efficient Euro-villains, car chases, bad jokes about Italians, guns, explosions and Heather Locklear. But if you're looking for something adventurous, creative or even vaguely amusing, then look somewhere else —and never look back.
We are supposed to accept Tucker as the new Eddie Murphy, but this sad attempt at a buddy action comedy reveals that, at his best, he's like Murphy at his worst. Proof that 'Chris Tucker' belongs in the Big Book Of Rhyming Slang.
