“The Rundown” (Universal Pictures)
The Rock rolls through his first modern day adventure film like he has been doing this acting thing all his life. “The Rundown” is a typical buddy movie combined with a maximum of action and excitement. You also have Seann William Scott providing comic relief to his hulking hero, and Christopher Walken as a villain like no other. Add in Rosario Dawson as a take care of herself action woman, and you have a movie full of good things.
The Rock plays Beck, a man who is hired to retrieve things. And if you have something his employer wants back, well you don’t want him to have to get tough. And he can. Get tough that is.
But Beck wants to open his own restaurant and be a simple guy. After one more job he figures he can do that. But first he must trek down to South America where a man named Travis (Scott) is waiting to be retrieved.
It doesn’t take long for Beck to find Travis, but getting him out of the jungle and on a plane is not easy. The main obstacle is a “lord of the jungle” named Hatcher (Walken). He and his gang of thugs don’t want Travis to leave until he discovers and turns over to Hatcher a rare and valuable treasure that is hidden in the jungle. Only Travis knows how to find it.
This puts Beck and Hatcher on a collision course, but Beck has a secret weapon. Mariana (Dawson) is the leader of a rebel gang and she is on Beck’s side. Still when the battle comes to be, it is all up to Beck to be a one man mow down army.
Seeing the Rock take on hundreds of bad guys is straining plausibility to the limit. Still if any one man could do it, the Rock would be that man. He has the brawn and the wits to make it happen.
In this movie the Rock is the show. He has the best lines, the best moves, and the best charisma. Scott is strictly second banana to his character. You get a flash of “Stiffler” here and there but Travis is not the wild man that the “American Pie” character is.
Walken is creepily evil as Hatcher, and Dawson has a few good moments in her role. But take away the Rock and the movie would sink without a trace. He is that much of a presence.
The movie is rated PG-13 for profanity and violence.
The Rock manages to keep the action, the humor and the excitement going. Still the movie is pretty average overall. But just think what it would be without the Rock to keep it rolling!
I scored “The Rundown” a rocking 5 out of 10.
