No one ever thought former Miami Hurricanes defensive tackle Dwayne Johnson would become one of the WWE’s top superstars, let alone a movie star.
Johnson is none other than The Rock (“The Scorpion King”), and he stars in Universal Pictures’ latest action-comedy release, “The Rundown,” directed by Peter Berg (“Very Bad Things”).
The Rock plays Beck, a man looking to settle his debt and open up a small restaurant. To clear his debt, Beck must become hired muscle to retrieve whatever his boss tells him to get back.
The movie opens with Beck out to retrieve a debt owed from the quarterback of the current Super Bowl champions. Beck must also bring his Super Bowl ring as collateral.
Before he can leave the “retrieval” business for good, Beck must complete one last job. He needs to bring back his boss’s son, Travis (Sean William Scott, “American Pie” trilogy) from the jungles of Brazil.
Travis abandoned his life in America to run from his bookie father and search for lost artifacts. Travis is on the hunt for the “gato” (cat), a pure gold artifact worth millions to its finder.
Bringing Travis back to the U.S. proves more difficult than Beck originally intended.
Christopher Walken (“Pulp Fiction”) plays wealthy mine owner Hatcher, who basically enslaves the natives of El Dorado, which is adequately named “Helldorado” by locals.
Hatcher also seeks the gato in order to profit from its value. The only way he can obtain it is to hunt Travis down.
A band of rebels skilled in hand-to-hand combat, fruit that paralyzes the body for five to six hours and a bunch of horny little monkeys humping everything in sight make escaping the jungle difficult.
The Rock and Scott have great chemistry together on screen, and it shows with some nice comedic moments in the film.
“The Rundown” boasts a nice supporting cast with the likes of Walken, Rosario Dawson (“The 25th Hour”), Ewen Bremner (“Trainspotting”), and Ernie Reyes Jr. (“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II”).
This movie contains all the elements of classic buddy movies like the “Lethal Weapon” series and the “48 Hours” movies.
A majority of the action sequences were done with good quality, but some of the action scenes were a bit far-fetched. It is virtually impossible to fall for almost a minute on-screen off a high cliff running into branches and rocks and come out unscathed with no broken bones.
Some of the dialogue in “The Rundown” could be less cheesy, but all is forgiven especially during Hatcher’s speech involving the tooth fairy and the gato.
Arnold Swarzenegger even makes a cameo appearance in a nightclub scene in the beginning of the film.
The Rock has been called the next Swarzenegger of our time. His cameo almost symbolized the passing of the torch to the next action star to hit Hollywood.
Over the past year, The Rock has focused more on his movie career rather than his wrestling career.
The Rock accredited much of his success in movies to WWE Chairman and Executive Producer Vince McMahon on the Sept. 22 episode of “Raw.” He said most of the support for his movie career came from McMahon and other backstage talent in the WWE.
This movie guarantees explosive action with some sidesplitting comedy for everyone to enjoy. Not one role outshines the other offering moviegoers a delicate balance between action, comedy and dialogue.
Those who doubted The Rock could be a major player in Hollywood after seeing “The Scorpion King” will have those doubts squashed after seeing “The Rundown.” This movie solidifies The Rock as a major action-comedy star.