Movies beginning with the letter "K"

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Knock Off

"Huh?"

That's the question that kept erupting from my comfused mouth all through this Jean-Claude Van Damme disaster. Van Damme plays a business man in the garment industry. On the side, he plays around in counterfeiting (the products of which are known as knock-offs). His business partner is the smart-mouthed Rob Schnieder, who we later learn is a CIA agent investigating -- I think -- the booming Hong Kong knock-off business.

That's actually one of the many flaws here: the CIA's involvement is never fully explained to us. You have the one agent working with a known "not totally above board" person for four years (?), and another, under the guise of being an investigator from the company the two men supposedly work for, who's investigating... what? The first agent? It made no sense to me.

In fact, the whole movie made no sense to me! Told with the backdrop of China's take-over of Hong Kong last year, the movie darts this way and that, with no clear origin or direction. It felt as though the writer wanted the audience to be as much in the dark as the characters -- and at least they got the honor of it making sense at the end!

To its credit, Knock Off does boast some impressive action sequences, so long as you don't expect the camera -- or your vision -- to stay in focus. In one breath I'd say, "Nice move!" and in the next, that common utterance: "Huh?" Many of the moves were telegraphed (using stop-motion photography), and other moves were camouflaged with triple-vision lenses (making me feel as though I'd had too much to drink before the movie -- an incredible feat, as I don't drink).

All in all, I just didn't get it.

This movie is rated R for violence and language.

SCORE: 3, and I'm being generous because I did like some of the action. Choppy and confusing, with distracting cinematography, I didn't feel like I was invited along for the ride -- kidnapped is more likely. Van Damme and Schneider make an okay team, but they really needed better material to work with (no pun intended). This one is a "skip it". Return to top