jean-claude van damme movies tend to be , if nothing else , a lot of mindless fun . 
his latest film , " knock off , " skips on the fun part leaving a wildly incoherent exercise that is , well , simply mindless . 
you can't really blame van damme . 
no one , i suspect , has ever expected " the muscles from brussels " to contribute a heartfelt performance brimming with introspection and delicate shades of gray . 
and even his sidekick co-star , " saturday night live " alumnus rob " makin' copies " schneider , does what's expected of him , although neither appear to want the role of straight man . 
no , the problem with the film is its direction . 
the first five minutes of the film are incomprehensible . . . 
and it goes downhill from there ! 
five hundred characters , it seems , are introduced within the first fifteen minutes . 
van damme doesn't land his first kick until after thirty--too late for most action fans--and by the time the hour mark has rolled around , your jaw will be on your cup holder and you'll be wondering why you elected to spend seven dollars on this mess . 
director hark tsui , whose previous film was the van damme/dennis rodman teamed " double team , " films at such a frenetic pace that it's hard to know what's going on , who's on whose side , and what the point of all this is . 
faster than you can yell " fruit stand ! " 
we're watching a crazed rickshaw race with schneider being bounced along by an energetic van damme . 
when schneider starts whacking van damme in the behind with a four-foot eel while enthusing " move your beautiful big ass , " the movie takes an unprecedented turn to the bizarre . 
every now and again " knock off " will deliver some truly ingenious directorial flourishes--inventive camera shots and angles , wild rides down gun silencers and from the tops of buildings to the sprawling street below , revealing cut-ins within the frame--but they all happen too quickly , and within such a furious frame of reference , that they're wasted . 
if only hark could have slowed things down just for a minute . 
if you're interested in the plot , you're better off reading a capsule review than trying to extract any meaning from the on-screen shenanigans : " jean-claude van damme plays a shady bluejeans manufacturer who uncovers a russian mafia plot to terrorize the world with " nanobombs " hidden in cabbage patch knock-offs . 
maybe . 
with paul sorvino . " 
a more accurate summary would be " jean-claude van damme bums around hong kong failing to avoid large , blatant coca-cola product placements . " 
the fact that the film is staged during hong kong's last days under british rule gets some lip service but doesn't figure in at all . 
perhaps " knock off " 's most intriguing credit is that ron and russell mael composed the frenzied music score . 
some of you might remember the mael brothers as the '80s synth pop duo sparks ; their contributions here are as confused as the accompanying action-- " kimono my house " indeed ! 
like the cheap jeans and " pumma " sneakers manufactured in hong kong , van damme's latest is a real phony . 
