|
The Rundown
 Release
Date: September 26, 2003
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Peter Berg
Screenwriter: James Vanderbilt, R.J. Stewart
Starring: The Rock, Seann William Scott, Christopher Walken, Rosario
Dawson, Jon Gries, Ewen Bremner
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG13 (for adventure violence and
some crude dialogue)
Official Website: TheRundown.com
Plot Summary: Beck (The Rock) doesn't look for or try
to make trouble for anyone. But trouble is what he's hired to clean up, and
there's one final mess he's got to get out of before he can leave it all behind.
And this one just keeps getting more and more tangled, like the Amazon jungle
he's been sent to in The Rundown. At the center of
his current trouble is a wise-ass named Travis (Scott), a fast-talking double
dealer whose dad has commissioned Beck to retrieve from a lingering adventure in
Brazil. Travis proves to be more of a handful than Beck expected, not only
because of his mouth and his heels-dug-in reluctance to leave, but because of a
couple of other complications he brings with him: Mariana (Dawson), a
no-nonsense local who holds the answers to some of the jungle's hidden
mysteries, and Hatcher (Walken), an unhinged despot who has turned the jungle
and its inhabitants into his own fortune-making, gold-mining empire. Beck
doesn't like to fight. But he's going to have to unleash everything he's got to
keep on top of his smack-talking quarry, the girl with the secret, the crazy
tyrant, the horny monkeys, the hallucinogenic fruit, the backs-to-the-wall
rebels, the perilous terrain, the hidden traps and every other obstacle that
this jungle throws at him.
Review By John Barker
- Take a pot shot but be warned.
The history of wrestling actors is not an illustrious one;
Hulk Hogan in Suburban Commando, Macho Man Randy Savage in Spiderman
and now The Rock in The Rundown. Now, believe me I wanted to hate this
film and on the whole it isn’t what you’d call intelligent cinema, but it is
enjoyable.
Dwayne Johnson, more commonly known as The Rock is retrieval expert Beck. He
is heavily in dept with the mafia and has to do various chores for a mob-boss.
One of these chores involves collecting the mafia-boses’ son Travis (Sean
Patrick Scott). In order to complete this task Beck travels to Brazil, visiting
a gold-mining quarry run by Hatcher (Christopher Walken).
Unfortunately, Hatcher decides that he needs Travis to help him find an
ancient artefact that is virtually priceless. Beck just wants to take Travis
home and after a little scrape with Hatcher’s hence-men, he also has a price
on his head. The duo get lost in the jungle and as with all ‘buddy’ movies
of this vein the duo start off disliking each other and eventually they learn to
get along.
Actor turned director Peter Berg does a reasonable job of turning what is
essentially a bad script into an enjoyable night of fodder. Although, the
classical action movie has been dead for a while (with the odd exception) I can
certainly see why comparisons have been made between this and Governor
Schwarzenegger’s early work. Although, it must be said that The Rock is not as
wooden as Arnie and he contains a lot more ability to form physical stunts.
Furthermore, some of the fight scenes are ingenious; taking Andy Chan’s
stunt choreography to surreal levels, using the jungle environment to its
fullest potential with pigmy warriors leaping from vines and spinning in
glorious slow-motion. Still, it does become a little repetitive as Beck is
always outnumbered 3-1 and manages to beat his adversaries. One such scene is a Commando
inspired assault on Hatcher’s compound, which concludes the film.
This scene stinks of action film convention, and the racial prejudice that
drives Beck’s subplot to free the slaves and rid them of Hatcher is
contradictory to some of the generic stereotypes that appear earlier in the
film. A stereotype that doesn’t appear, right until the flawed conclusion of
the film, is the protagonist’s use of guns as a mode of physical expression.
Refreshingly, Beck uses his brains and his environment to defeat his
adversaries, much as a pumped up Jackie Chan would, rather than resorting to the
gun fetishism that gives The Matrix films there appeal to a teenage
audience.
Overall, the narrative and acting are juvenile, but as entertainment this is
a Rock-ing slice of body-slamming enjoyment.
|
