<NEG> dear god , this is a fantastically bad film ! </NEG> regardless of what i say about knock off , <NEG> you can't grasp its awfulness from my words </NEG> . you have to see it and experience it for yourself . here's the kicker , though -- i suggest that you do so . <NEG> yes , this is a bad film -- easily one of the most incompetent films of the year -- </NEG> but it has a certain misguided charm that makes it <NEG> a unique kind of disaster to endure </NEG> . in fact , i enjoyed myself for most of its brief running time , despite the <NEG> dreadful acting and a completely incomprehensible story </NEG> . don't get me wrong : i'm not excusing knock off . it <NEG> reaches an unacceptable level of badness </NEG> ; it's <NEG> so incoherent that i wonder if it was hacked up worse </NEG> than the avengers was . it also <NEG> features some truly terrible performances </NEG> from lela rochon , michael wong , paul sorvino , and -- of course -- jean-claude van damme . it does , however , have the entertaining presence of rob schneider , and the excessively inventive and pretentious direction of tsui hark . as i watched it , <NEG> i occasionally wondered if it was aware of its own awfulness </NEG> . now , in retrospect , it seems clear that it wasn't , but it's still <NEG> a fascinating kind of mess </NEG> . i don't like writing plot descriptions ( it is , by far , the most boring part of writing a review ) , but , in this case , i'm off the hook : there is no way i could write an accurate synopsis for knock off . for the sake of comparison , i had no trouble understanding the usual suspects during my first viewing . i paid closer attention to knock off , and the only thing i am able to say about it is that van damme plays a dude named ray , and is accused by the cia ( i think ) of selling knock off products ( knock off products are , of course , products that look like name-brand materials but are generic and cheap ) . i don't know what any of this has to do with martial arts , but there are lots of martial arts in the film . ray is good at martial arts , so when he has to beat up bad guys , there's no problem . rob schneider plays his sidekick , although i had no idea who he really was by the end of the film . lela rochon is just some woman who accuses them of stuff , while paul sorvino is both the good guy and the bad guy at once ! in fact , <NEG> every character goes through so many shifts from good to bad that the end provides absolutely no insight </NEG> into what any of them really do . in that order , knock off is <NEG> completely incoherent and makes absolutely no sense </NEG> . but what <NEG> a strange mess </NEG> it is . it was written by stephen e . de souza , who also wrote die hard and 48 hours . can this be the same man ? i don't see how , unless , of course , huge chunks of the film have been removed for the sake of running time . knock off seems to have an interesting premise ( as far as action films go ) , but there's no semblance here . for instance , van damme is introduced , and then seconds later he's running a chariot race through the streets of hong kong . why ? who knows . what are the implications of this ? <NEG> i have no idea </NEG> . most action films abandon depth in favor of action , and this is normally a problem . knock off , however , is the first film that i would have preferred to see with all of the talky sequences cut . <NEG> the acting is embarrassingly bad </NEG> : rochon , in particular , delivers each of her lines with <NEG> stiff and talentless insincerity </NEG> . sorvino , in addition , deserves better than this . van damme is <NEG> bad </NEG> , but he's charming in that bad way , and so i can't say that he's hard to watch ( although <NEG> i rarely understood what he was saying </NEG> ) . the only exception is rob schneider , who is actually quite funny a lot of the time . tsui utilizes so many tricks that he makes john woo look tame by comparison . they're all <NEG> pointless gimmicks </NEG> though , such as shots of the inner-workings of a knock off running shoe . but his action scenes are never boring : one particular piece inside of a fruit factory ( a fruit factory ? ) is well-choreographed . lots of the scenes are pitched well to comedy , such as our heroes' first encounter with the rochon character . but did tsui know that <NEG> his film is beyond ludicrous </NEG> ? i hope he did , for the alternative is a frightening thought . knock off has the feel of a truly terrible exercise in camp mania . if it were boring , i'd give it zero stars . but it's not boring : <NEG> it's loud and excessive and completely incoherent </NEG> . it's also funny , even when it isn't meaning to be funny . a bad film that succeeds as entertainment doesn't deserve to be fully lambasted . i recognize knock off for its <NEG> irrefutable badness </NEG> , but i can't deny it's zany , useless charm . oh , i know , they're just action scenes looking desperately for a real story , but they're fun action scenes amongst a crowd of laughably inane concepts . it's fun to admire <NEG> the awfulness </NEG> of a film like this , but that doesn't excuse the fact that <NEG> it is , indeed , awful </NEG> .
