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In the early stage of “The Rundown,” The Rock goes inside a nightclub to fight some guys, and he spots Arnold Schwarzenegger on his way out. “Have a good time,” Arnold tells him. It’s as if he’s passing the relay baton. Whether The Rock will compete against Schwarzenegger’s reign as an action star is dificult to tell – but from “The Rundown,” I am pretty sure he has a good shot. I enjoyed him in his debut leading role in “The Scorpion King”, but only up to a certain degree. “On the basis of this movie,” I wrote, “He can surely lead in films like this.” That is also correct on the basis of “The Rundown” – but it’s a much better movie and he has more to do.
He portrays a character named Beck, a “retrieval expert” who, in an earlier scene, tackles the task of retrieving a bad debt from a former football player. He successfully does it, but not without beating up the entire opposing team’s defensive line in the process. Afterward, his boss assigns him another job – to go and find his son who is somewhere in the Amazon. Immediately upon hearing ‘Amazon,’ I grew interested. I am wearing out-of-action flicks that are filmed entirely in Los Angeles County. In the movie, Hawaii stands in for South America, and apparently, it does a great job of it, assisted at times by computer-generated effects. The jungle settings add a touch and astonishing beauty to the movie and emphasize the exaggerated characters.
Beck’s mission takes him to a town named El Dorado that is ruled by the wicked Hatcher (Christopher Walken, whose first apperance as usual never fails to put the viewers in a good mood). Beck is after Travis Walker, a worthless treasure seeker played by Seann William Scott, who is, yes, Seann William Scott from the “American Pie” series and who, believe it or not, played Stifler. Here, his character has the same boastful, obnoxious, in-your-face attitude, has added a beard, and is once again a natural comic.
Absolutely. It’s The Rock, but with all the restrictions imposed by his role (There is something akin to a degree of latitude of sorts that exists in action films, where the lead actor can afford to be comical to some extent, while the secondary actor can take it a notch higher). For example, I liked Beck’s call to his boss prior to beating up half the NFL team, where he says that he doesn’t want to pound on them because “They may have a chance to repeat.” The first individual who encounters Beck in El Dorado happens to be a bartender, known as Mariana, played by Rosario Dawson who, in my opinion, is quite beautiful and quite good as an action performer, which makes me think of her as a sort of Linda Hamilton in ‘The Terminator.’ In my review of “Chelsea Walls,” I said, “Have more beautiful lips ever been photographed?” Going by her performance here, I put it to you that the answer is no. He Dawson’s character does not like this, but I will not say any further.
Scott is trying to locate a valuable Indian treasure that he wishes to steal since it may free the Indians in an undetermined fashion. However, if he sells it on eBay first, then he will not be able to. The character of The Rock gets caught up in the mix.
Needless to say, at some point, Beck and Travis have to get stranded in the Jungle, but how do you go about doing this? The film is refreshingly simple: Beck makes a Jeep flip over, and he and Travis tumble down approximately nine miles of hillside. I was reminded of a similar event in “Romancing the Stone,” and indeed the two movies contain a comparable comic spirit. Once they get into the jungle, they have all sorts of challenging escapades and I appreciated that the events were real, that we were not just watching gunfights and car chases, but rather a captivating and bold venture.
The film makes it a point to stay away from shoot-outs on autopilot. That’s why Beck uses firearms as little as he can. “I certainly don’t want to use guns because they take me to a place I don’t want to go,” he says. But in some dire situations, he eventually changes his position. In the scene where he fights the internal battle with himself about needing a gun, he eyes a loaded weapon and a montage depicting The Rock’s eyeless pulls together. It’s like a drunk in “The Lost Weekend” attempting to resist the urge to relapse.
These days, Christopher Walken specializes in grabbing people’s attention the moment he walks onscreen. Instead of acting though, he goes into a frenzy and rambles like a lunatic. In ‘Gigli‘, he pondered about whether aliens had abducted the judge’s brother. In ‘Poolhall Junkies’, he had a monologue that delved into the law of the wild. In this movie, he retells a parable about the Tooth Fairy that is far too convoluted for the locals to get. There’s also a particular hat that he owns that pays homage to the rule; heroes wear a normal hat, sidekicks wear silly hats and villains wear ugly hats. The movie was directed by Peter Berg, an actor who did his first directorial job with “Very Bad Things” and from what I gathered, I thought he did a very bad thing. While I’m sharing some old reviews, I did write in the review for this movie that “Berg has proven that he can direct a good movie, even if he hasn’t.” Now he has.
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