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Reese vs Chan
Sweet Alabama Home faces tough competetion from The Tuxedo
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Arthur J Pais
Her redneck husband won't divorce her. But the top New York fashion designer Melanie Carmichael is determined to find happiness with another man she has fallen in love with. She decides to sneak back to Alabama, her home, to deal with her past and future.
Reese Witherspoon, who plays Melanie in Sweet Home Alabama, has an opportunity for a major star turn with the Touchstone romantic comedy.
A nominee for the Golden Globe Award last year for her work in the surprise summer success Legally Blonde, which grossed about $160 million worldwide, Witherspoon also featured recently in the art house hit, The Importance of Being Earnest.
In the coming weekend, her light-hearted film will vie with the Jackie Chan comedy, The Tuxedo for top spot.
Though September is not generally a strong month for big box-office openings, the $21 million Barbershop grossed two weeks ago could be a good omen for Sweet Home Alabama and The Tuxedo.
Both movies could open strong but who would lead? Many will bet on Sweet Home believing it will appeal to younger audiences. Though the Jackie Chan movie also carries good report, some experts wonder if he can pull big numbers without the help of a strong sidekick as Chris Tucker who was a big draw in Rush Hour movies.
Though The Tuxedo also has a romantic angle, Sweet Home Alabama has a bigger romantic aura.
"The film is about self-discovery and learning to be okay with yourself," Witherspoon notes, "which I think is something that everybody struggles with."
"It is deals with the very true-to-life quest of finding someone to spend the rest of your life and the chaos that sometimes erupts with that quest."
Andy Tennant whose romantic adventure Ever After, starring Drew Barrymore, grossed about $130 million worldwide, had worked with Witherspoon on smaller projects previously. This is a major reunion for the two.
"I wanted to do a love story where the decision came down to a great guy or the right guy," says Tennant.
The humor in the film comes largely from Melanie's return to deep South, to a very different life, after seemingly shed all those trappings in New York.
"She thinks she is hotter than napalm," Tennant explains. "But when she comes home to take care of the unfinished business, the people down there cut her off at the knees and remind her of who she really is."
Like Melanie discovers a new world, cabbie-turned-chauffer Jimmy Tong (Jackie Chan) is also forced to find out a thing or two about himself when he accidentally gets into a world of double crossing and espionage.
Chan, whose hit movies Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2 have grossed about $550 million worldwide does a different star turn in The Tuxedo than in his other movies. For this time he is seen as the man who completely inept at the kind of gravity-defying stunts that have made him famous across the world.
"I am not playing a policeman," Chan says, "Just an ordinary person who becomes a kind of super spy because of a magic tuxedo that lets him do all kinds of special things." With a touch of a button, Chan is transformed from a fight mode to a dance mode, for instance.
Chan, who likes to do his own stunts, generally eschews special effects. But in The Tuxedo, he faced a different reality --- and worked with special effects. That was fine with him, he says because of some of those stunts were done at the behest of the tuxedo.
But even he had an opportunity to do a lot risky stunts by himself.
"He is a master of choreographing the fights," says first-time director Kevin Donovan who has been making commercials for over five years, "Not just in a rock 'em sock'em way, but in a way that's lyrical and funny."
Jennifer Love Hewitt, who joins Chan in many of his adventures, trained for nearly three months before working on the film. But the help she got from Chan, she says, is invaluable. Though Chan puts everyone at ease, she says, she could not but feel intimidated at times.
"Being scared to death that you are going to mess up your stunts in front of Jackie Chan is really a good way to ensure you're going to do it right," she says.
Hewitt, one of the more successful vocal artists in America whose fourth solo album Bare Naked is releasing next month, has starred in hit movies like the medium-budget I Know What You Did Last Summer. She gets her biggest boost in The Tuxedo.
"I have always wanted to be in an action movie," she says, adding that being cast opposite Jackie Chan was a huge draw but there was also another reason.
"I have a real tomboy side to me that loves to kick butt."