The Rundown Movie Review:

“The Rock glistens in clumsy ‘Rundown’”

After the loud and unentertaining vehicle The Scorpion King (200), The Rock is back with better results in the adventure comedy The Rundown. This is the vehicle film that The Rock should have done first to certify him as a popular action star, though the overall film comes across as merely modest.

The Rock plays Beck, a Los Angeles bounty hunter that is very patient, does not use guns, but always gets the job done. His boss gives him one last assignment to score enough money so he can retire into the restaurant business. Beck is hired to go into the Amazon jungles of Brazil to find his boss’ troublemaking son Travis (American Wedding’s Seann William Scott). After arriving and securing the cocky Travis, Beck learns that his boss’ son is more trouble than he is worth. Travis knows where a secret golden artifact called “Gato Diablo” is located, and everyone wants to get his or her hands on it. To make matters worse, the local and powerful slave driver named Hatcher (Christopher Walken) wants the profits from “Gato Diablo” and Travis dead as well. Travis’ ex-flame Mariana (The 25th Hour’s Rosario Dawson) wants “Gato Diablo” for her people, in which the artifact is a sign of inspiration and freedom. However, Beck is a man who negotiates, but never gives up his mark and if that fails then thing get messy. The adventure then begins follows arguments, a few chuckles, fights, and many explosions.

The Rundown moves very quickly and never becomes unwatchable, but there is nothing in the film that everyone has not already seen before outside of The Rock stretching his star status. Veteran actor Peter Berg (The Great White Hype) directs with many effective slow motion tracking shots and cleverly introduces Beck and Hatcher by just showing their eyes first and foremost. On the other hand, for every elaborate action moment in the film, there follows a clumsy action moment. An example is after a terrifically stage fight sequence with Beck and some goons with bullwhips, Beck merely punches through a brick column to collapse a building. Berg previously directed the well made, but disturbing black comedy Very Bad Things (1998), and with The Rundown he shows his visional scope and flair.

The script by R.J. Stewart and James Vanderbilt (Basic) is very flimsy and becomes repetitive through out. As a spectator, the thought crosses as to how many times is Travis going to do his dunce “lighting” fight gestures, and how many encounters are these characters going to have with a aroused clan of monkeys. There are a few laughs, but they are mostly from the acting and directorial choices, not the script. The story is sort of a wanna-be Midnight Run (1988) meets Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Also, how many times have audiences seen an aggressive bounty hunter or tough guy that does not use guns? Furthermore, there are many holes in the script, such as in one of the film’s earlier moments when an unknown other bounty hunter steals Beck’s job collateral. The character is hinted at, but never resurfaces. The audience also never completely finds out why Travis is sought out to come back to his father.

The Rundown is itself The Rock’s film. He is the central aspect and he really shines with his presence, charisma, and likeability as the bounty hunter Beck. In fact there is a great cameo appearance in the first few minutes of the film by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who practically passes the reigns of action hero icon over to The Rock with his one line of dialogue. Seann William Scott plays Travis with the same cockiness seen before from him. Scott does not have the foul-mouth or attitude of Stifler, but he delivers the same choices of his lost character in Bulletproof Monk (2003). Rosario Dawson arises as the female lead with stunning beauty, and the great Christopher Walken has fun as the villain Hatcher delivering silly monologues that actually will grab your attention only because it is Walken who is delivering them.

The Rundown is at times fun, explosive, but it has a lot of potholes and moments that are just cheesy. However, this film is a good vehicle for The Rock, who is going to be a huge action star in the next few years.

Grade: C

09/26/03
By Joseph C. Tucker

What ever happened to the buddy-action comedy? After years of recycling the action-comedy in the style of “Lethal Weapon”, Hollywood had almost given up. With the disaster that was last summer’s “Hollywood Homicide” and the mediocre success of “Bad Boys 2” it seemed that the genre had finally run its course.

Now comes “The Rundown”, another buddy-action comedy that has the same flavor as the gems of the genre but also seems so new. The film opens with an introduction to “bounty-hunter” Beck (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) who works for a crime lord named Walker (William Lucking). Walker offers Beck a job that will settle Beck’s debt to the kingpin. The job is to journey into the Amazon to retrieve his morally corrupt son, Travis (Seann William Scott). Beck blindly accepts and before he knows it he is squaring off against a tyrant (Christopher Walken), fighting with the local rebels, participating in a stampede, eating some hallucinogenic fruit and trying to fend off a horny monkey.

Surprisingly “The Rundown” is a fresh, hilarious and a fun-filled journey back into the buddy-action comedy. The Rock is charismatic and makes such a great action hero. His fight scenes are flawless and filled with a lot of energy. Johnson makes such a great stoic hero to William Scott’s doofus.

What I did like about the relationship between Scott and Johnson was their utter dislike for each other. It was very reminiscent of “48 hrs” especially when Scott’s doofus was always trying to pick a fight with the huge Johnson. I got so many flashbacks of Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte slugging it out in the classic 80’s comedy.

On the flip-side, I also enjoyed seeing that Scott’s character was also more than just a doofus. When the chips were down and he was in his element, Scott really delivers and thee screenwriter wasn’t scared to give this character more than just a two-dimensional persona like Scott is used to playing.

I liked Walken’s performance as the villain Hatcher but the small flaw in his performance is that we actually started to like the guy because his evil seems so utterly tongue-in-cheek. The villains in other films of this genre were always so serious, vicious and ruthless and Walken wasn’t any of those.

I also really enjoyed the film’s script which found ways to delight me once more with this genre. The mixture and almost homage of Indiana Jones, “48 hrs” and even “Red Heat” was such a great start to bringing back the genre. I also liked how the film was able to include out-of-this-world comedic moments like the horny monkey and the fruit without ruining an ounce of the tone in the film. There was so much right going on here.

This film will be a pure delight to action-fans and will hopefully solidify The Rock as a contender for the next Hollywood blockbuster action star. “The Rundown” is a pure delight.

(4 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer

Dean Kish

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of The Rundown and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.