renowned hong kong action director tsui hark first teamed with jean-claude van damme on the action star's 1997 pairing with dennis rodman , _double_team_ , and managed to make what initially appeared to be a disaster into a slick , stylish , and somewhat diverting action timekiller . tsui continues to energetically pile on the visual razzle dazzle in his latest collaboration with the muscles from brussels , _knock_off_ , but this time around , style <NEG> neither save a script that is at best ridiculous , and at worst incomprehensible ; nor hide a host of truly lousy performances </NEG> . writer steven e . desouza's fairly straightforward plotline isn't as outre as _double_team_'s strange yarn involving a secret think tank/prison , but it makes about as much sense , which is little . van damme plays marcus ray , a hong kong-based sales rep for a jeans company <NEG> ( ! ) </NEG> who stumbles upon a russian terrorist scheme to implant powerful microchip-sized bombs in hk product exports to the u . s . --dolls , electronic equipment , and , yes , jeans . it's all part of some type of ransom scheme , but <NEG> all i remember is -- and i kid you not -- graphics on a cia computer screen showing a map of the world , bombs detonating , and an hat-wearing figure on the other side of the world bursting out into laughter </NEG> . . . . . . which is what the crowd at the showing i attended spontaneously did throughout _knock_off_ . while all of van damme's films have its share of <NEG> unintentional laughs </NEG> , mostly due to the stiff acting " skills " of the physically agile van damme , _knock_off_ delivers more than usual ( though not as many as van damme's embarrassing directorial effort , 1996's _the_quest_ ) . a lot of the laughs are earned by some particularly painful lines by desouza : " i smoked that badass like a roman candle ! " and " entrepreneurship , babycakes ! " standing out among my favorites . but it is indeed <NEG> the pathetic performances </NEG> that provide the bulk of _knock_off_'s laughs . van damme is <NEG> true to laughable form , perhaps even worse than usual </NEG> . early scenes actually _require_ him to make funny with co-star rob schneider ( improbably cast as a deep cover cia agent posing as marcus's business partner ) , and the sight and sound of the still-heavily-accented van damme <NEG> haplessly trying to drop punchlines is hilarious in the wrong way </NEG> . even typically good actors are not immune to the bad acting bug . paul sorvino is <NEG> unconvincing and terribly overwrought </NEG> as schneider's cia superior ; and lela rochon , playing an investigator for the jeans company , <NEG> spends the entire movie in perpetual snarl mode </NEG> . in rochon's defense , though , her role requires her to do little more than display her toned legs , exquisite bone structure , and perky bosoms , the latter coming in handy for one key scene where she must fish for microbombs stuck in her ample cleavage . tsui picks up where he left off visually in _double_team_ , juicing up the proceedings with inventive camera work . here , though , tsui's <NEG> visual razzle dazzle borders on over kill , coming off as desperate attempts to shield the inanity of the entire enterprise </NEG> . for each nifty trick tsui pulls off , such as a recurring visual theme that has the camera literally going through the circuitry of electronic devices , there are others that are <NEG> completely superfluous </NEG> . this is <NEG> especially disconcerting </NEG> when the trick in question could be clever when used in the right context . for instance , one scene early on has marcus putting his hand in a box . as he puts his hand in , the same action is shown from an overhead camera angle in a rectangle at the corner of the screen . it's undoubtedly an interesting visual , but it would have been nice if its use actually amounted to something . the test of a van damme movie boils down to the action sequences , but surprisingly , those in _knock_off_ <NEG> leave much to be desired </NEG> . tsui does what he can to make something of them , employing freeze frames , blurred motion , and unconventional camera angles , but <NEG> there is nothing fundamentally special about the fairly generic </NEG> chase and fight sequences written by desouza . there isn't anything as preposterously amusing as the climactic tiger/land mine fight in _double_team_ , let alone anything remotely close to tsui's legendary hong kong works ( but that's a given going in ) . if tsui has any hope of approaching his countryman john woo's stateside success , he would do best to break free from van damme . . . before it's too late . if he continues his involvement with b-grade movies such as _knock_off_ , the respect he has from hk action fans will continue to diminish . . . that is , if it hasn't already disappeared entirely after <NEG> this fiasco </NEG> .
