Genre: Action, comedy, adventure
Jackie Chan and John Cena star as two former soldiers who find themselves on separate missions in Iraq. After a series of mishaps, miscommunication and a lot of unnecessary fighting, the pair are forced to work together to fight a common enemy.
Many of us grew up watching Jackie Chan perform crazy stunts and fights and he doesn’t disappoint in this film, despite being 69 years old.
The action choreography is well done and both hand-to- hand combat and the gun fights are entertaining.
Chan’s signature style of fighting paired with Cena’s history as a wrestler added something extra to the action scenes.
The characters speak English and Mandarin which gives the movie points for diversity.
However, many plot points are discussed in Mandarin so subtitles are vital for this one.
The rest of the dialogue includes a handful of jokes and one-liners between the two main characters.
While Chan and Cena are a joy to watch individually, the chemistry between the two is sorely lacking. At some points it feels like they were trying to match the energy Chan had with Chris Tucker in the Rush Hour movies but failed to reach that same level of ease and comedic timing with one another. To be fair, with such a basic storyline and very little excitement, the stars did not have much to work with.
If you’re a fan of either one of the stars, Hidden Strike will be a fun movie to watch and it’s certainly not the worst way to spend 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Hidden Strike is available to watch on Netflix
