A Chinese and American production shot in 2018, but mainly funded by mainland China, this feature film starring Jackie Chan and John Cena was then put on the shelf because of whatever setbacks, perhaps due to Covid19. However, a good five years later and with a change in name from its original names “Project X-traction”, “Project Ex Baghdad” and so on, “Hidden Strike” finally appeared on the streaming platform Netflix.
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Obviously, “Need for Speed” director Scott Waugh and screenwriter Arash Amel are trying to recreate the mood of the buddy cops action-comedy films like “Rush Hour” with the pairing of Chan and Cena. Set in a near future desert in Baghdad, a huge Chinese-owned oil refinery is under attack by mercenaries which puts all their almost five hundred workers and their families at risk. In order to transport them to the safer Green Zone, the company has received the service of a security team headed by Dragon Luo Feng (Jackie Chan), an ex-soldier turned private security contractor. Luo's Shadow Squad is to evacuate everyone using the “Highway of Death” to reach the stable safe zone. But he has another problem, his estranged daughter Mei (Ma Chun Rui) who works there as an engineer is among them and she is not happy to see him at all.
Furthermore, joining the ride but solely to kidnap the refinery professor is Owen Paddock (Pilou Asbaek) who needs the secret code from the professor to unlock the refinery in order to steal the oil. Desperate to earn more money to finance his little village full of orphans and the water system, ex-Marine Chris Van Horne (John Cena) and his brother Henry also turn up. Soon it becomes clear that Paddock is only using them for his personal gains, and Van Horne has no choice but to join the Chinese team and go on the hunt to take down the ruthless mastermind.
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Unfortunately, the film decides to change direction from here on by pitching Chan and Cena into the buddy mode to further create more action and slapstick comedy. But because of the subpar script, they have very little to work on and look uninspired. Nonetheless, a stand out action sequence has Chan balancing on overhead pipes in the refinery, fighting off mercenaries while the more grounded Cena is resorting to just throwing them around. Still, both the leads seem to put in quite reasonably solid performances, apart from their goofy interchange which is predictable and again offers nothing new. Emerging star Cena can be fun and funny as he displayed in “Suicide Squad” and “Peacemaker” but not so here.
Sadly, this buddy action-comedy offers absolutely nothing new or exciting. In fact, most of the desert locations look cheap and fake with very poor cartoonish CGI effects. In addition, with the inclusion of a sandstorm during the attack of the escaping convoy by the mercenaries, the film indisputably moves into a poor man's version of George Miller's “Mad Max: Fury Road” territory. In contrast, it looks like Waugh filmed his cheap “Highway of Death” in a kid's sandbox with really bad greenscreen work compared to Miller's magnificent beast.
Although portrayed as the main villain, Pilou Asbaek from “Game of Thrones” doesn't face Luo in a typical showdown at the end. Still, he is quite slimy and intolerable in his not-that-demanding role. Furthermore, the climactic bungee fight scene, filmed mainly for laughs between Luo and the assailant which takes place in a room full of foam, is totally silly and lacks any impact. Also, Ma Chun Rui who plays Luo's daughter is there to add a bit of emotional element and for Van Horne to hit on, which turns out to be rather corny. As for the rest of the supporting cast, they might as well be elsewhere.
“Hidden Strike” is like one of those countless action B-movies that went straight to VHS. You know, the one that you rented out from the video shop to watch once only on a Saturday night in the good old days. Jackie Chan is getting on in age and it is impossible for him to perform like he used to in films like “Police Story” or “Dragons Forever”. Therefore viewers expecting a repeat of those kinds of spectacular stunts will be very disappointed.
