The Rundown (2003)

Posted by Mrs Giggles on October 25, 2003 in 2 Oogies, Film Reviews, Genre: Action & Adventure

The Rundown (2003)

Main cast: Dwayne Johnson (Beck), Seann William Scott (Travis), Rosario Dawson (Mariana), Ewen Bremner (Declan), Jon Gries (Harvey), Ernie Reyes Jr (Manito), William Lucking (Billy Walker), and Christopher Walken (Hatcher)
Director: Peter Berg

The Rundown will be remembered more for being the movie where The Rock unzips Seann William Scott’s pants and loses his dignity to a trained monkey than for being a good movie. This half baked and watered-down action adventure movie doesn’t really do anything other than to prove that The Rock needs some serious work on his timing and delivery when it comes to comedy.

Beck is a debt collector looking to retire and open his own restaurant. However, his latest and hopefully last assignment is hijacked from him by a rival. For his swan song, he will travel to Brazil to bring back his boss’s son Travis. He locates Travis easily, but Travis has found some important and very valuable relic and the local crime boss Hatcher will not let Travis leave. Things get a little bit more complicated when the local rebel leader turns out to be Mariana, the woman Travis is flirting with, and she wants the relic too, for the sake of the poor oppressed people naturally.

Christopher Walken is a decent villain even if he’s obviously in this movie for the paycheck and nothing more. Rosario Dawson has nothing to do other than to pout while Seann William Scott, baring his newly chiseled body aside, is just recycling his Stifler act here. But faring the worst is The Rock. His deadpan delivery of the one-liners always seem off by a few seconds, as if he’s self-conscious of the camera and he’s waiting for the cue from the director. He’s a pretty good action hero, but unless he brushes up on his timing and delivery, he’d better off playing a mute action hero.

Because the hero is bland and flat, the otherwise middle-of-the road formulaic action movie The Rundown fails to deliver the expected laughs along with the explosions. Thus, it’s unfortunately blander than it should have been.

Mrs Giggles
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