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In the very beginning of “The Rundown,” we see The Rock entering a nightclub to take on some tough guys, and he bumps into Arnold Schwarzenegger at the exit. “Have a good time,” Arnold says. It’s as if he’s giving The Rock a blessing of sorts. Whether or not The Rock will contend with Schwarzenegger’s extended reign as an action hero is tough to gauge but judging purely off of “The Rundown,” he stands a good chance. I appreciated him in his first leading role, “The Scorpion King” (2002), but only to a certain extent. “On the basis of this movie,” I said, “he can undoubtedly lead in films like this.” That too is true off of “The Rundown,” but it is a much better film and he has more to do in it.
In the movie, Beck is an NFL extraction agent. In the first scene, he is attempting to extract a faulty receivable from an NFL quarterback. He succeeds after managing to beat the entire defensive line. His boss assigns him another task: find his son who is lost somewhere in the Amazon. The ‘Amazon’ piqued my interest because I’m getting tired of action flicks that only occur in Los Angeles County. In reality, Hawaii plays the role of South America in the movie, and it pulls it off remarkably well, sometimes with the aid of technology; and the jungle locations give the movie a texture and beauty that matches the outsized characters tracks his targets down to a place called El Dorado, a town ruled by the sinister Hatcher (Christopher Wilken, who, to no one’s surprise, brings in good cheer with his enthusiasm. Beck’s target is none other than Seann William Scott, yes, the same Seann William Scott from the ‘American Pie’ franchise, that plays an incompetent and grease wearing treasure hunter. He is now sporting a beard and still has the same cocky attitude, and, let’s be honest, he’s a natural comic actor.
So is The Rock, within the limits set by his character (there is some kind of a sliding scale in action pictures in which the star can be funny up to a point, but the second banana can go beyond that point). For instance, with Beck calling his boss before he proceeds to beating half the NFL players, I found it amusing that he refrains from pounding on them because they “may have a chance to repeat.” In El Dorado, Beck’s first encounter is with the bartender Mariana played by Rosario Dawson, and she is later in a lot of convincing action, somewhat like Linda Hamilton in “The Terminator.” “Have more beautiful lips ever been photographed?” I posed in my review of her performance in “Chelsea Walls.” Dancer Dawson has chosen for herself an indefinite position, so that she can eventually put everybody off and get them to shift her “no” into other categories. On the basis of her performance here, I suggest that the answer is “no.” Wilken’s character runs El Dorado like the kind of company town where there is no such thing as freedom, just work (without a shovel you rent yourself by the day). His power is absolute, and no one can notice it whilst living inside. Dawson does not like this, but I will not reveal more.
Scott’s character is determined to locate an invaluable Indian artifact that could somehow assist the Indians, but only if he does not sell it on eBay first. The person The Rock plays intervenes. Beck and Travis clearly need to get lost in the forest at some point, but how do we achieve this? The film does not beat around the bush: Beck causes a jeep to have a crash and he and Travis tumble down a hill that happens to be roughly nine miles long. The Two movies have a similar comic spirit once they go to the jungle because they always get into a fight. While in a jungle, they encounter various dangerously exciting challenges. I found it wonderful that actual events were taking place and we were not just watching random shootouts and chases, but interesting and bold action.
To steer clear of automatic fire fights, the film makes it a point to avoid utilizing firearms. “Guns teleport me to a place I’d prefer to avoid,” Beck states. In regards to intense situations, he tends to change his opinion. The Rock’s gaze is fixated on weapons and ammunition while being bombarded with over the top clips including a close up on his eyes. The urge to seize the gun becomes so unbearable until, akin to a inebriated individual in “The Lost Weekend”, when they start debating on having a drink.
Christopher Wilken has one talent nowadays: He steps into a scene and carries out an intense monolog in a way that it feels like it’s coming from a steaming bog deep within his brain. He had a riff about the law of the wild in “Poolhall Junkies” and pondered whether aliens abducted the judge’s sibling in “Gigli”. Here, he shares an extremely disturbing fable about the Tooth Fairy that’s been difficult for the locals to comprehend. He has a rather interesting hat too that reminds of the hat rule: Hero wears hat, sidekick wears funny hat, and the villain wears the ugly hat. The film was done by Peter Berg, the actor, whose first venture into directing was “Very Bad Things” (1998), a film I believed was one of those Very Bad Things. Since I am quoting my old reviews today, let me also illustrate an excerpt of mine: “Berg shows that he can direct good films even if he hasn’t.” Now, I suppose he has.
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