A Movie Career Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Today's release of the widely unanticipated Rush Hour 3 serves as yet another reminder of how talent can go to waste. Here's a comprehensive list of all of Chris Tucker's films in the past ten years:

Rush Hour
Rush Hour 2
Rush Hour 3

That's it. That's the list. This is the most underreported movie mystery of our time: Why would a comedian as talented and magnetic as Tucker be exclusively devoted to a single, lukewarm trilogy? Usually when an actor lays low it's an established star who takes a few years off to raise the kids (think Demi Moore). But Tucker went in to the Rush Hour franchise with very little under his belt and has no personal life to speak of. Typically, when a young actor hits it big with a $150 million grosser, he leverages that payday to, you know, take other offers. Did he sign the most binding contract of all time? Has his agent been in a coma for the past decade? Or is Chris Tucker hiding deeper, personal troubles that are squandering a talent that could have made him the biggest black comedian since Eddie Murphy?