Hey folks, Harry here with another review of THE RUNDOWN starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and apparently... though the script is horrible and the stunts way too unrealistic, it has quite a bit of fun where it counts.. if you can ignore or forgive the faults. This really does sound like a goofy funky flick that might be fun. Here ya go...
Hey, my name's Brett and I also saw "The Rundown" at a screening in New York City a couple of weeks ago and I figured I'd give you a review to add to the previous one that was sent.
This movie is not as bad as it seemed like it was going to be, the script if horrible and much of the stunts are way too unrealisitc but thanks to the good casting job, much of the jokes and action sequences work. While The Rock seems like a bad actor, upon closer look he is not actually that bad, showing a lot more personality than Governor Ahnold (who actually makes a very weird cameo in the opening sequence where he says one word, walks away and left the audience going "wasn't that Arnold..."). He delivers the jokes well and the stunts he performs will draw in the wrestling crowd.
The supporting cast to The Rock is great and very well cast. Seann William Scott is very funny and does some great work when he threatens to beat everybody up when he is a weakling.
The movie starts with The Rock flexing his muscles a bit as Beck, a bounty hunter for a very rich man who beats up a football player and as The Rock puts it in a funny way..."he has his entire offensive line with him." So we now find out that The Rock is a cook who wants to start his own restaurant but owes Billy (the rich guy) money and has to pay it off being a bounty hunter. This is where the plot falls apart as the entire backstory of everybody is never mentioned. We don't know why The Rock owes him money and he also constantly brings up bad memories of guns which is why he never uses them. None of this is ever explained and when questioned he just says "it's a long story." A screenwriter can not get out of character development by saying "it's a long story."
So The Rock is sent to Brazil to get Billy's son Travis (Seann William Scott) who is an adventure seeking man desperate to find an ancient artifact. If this is done, The Rock is cleared of all debt. Here The Rock meets bad guy Christopher Walken who plays a mining owner named Hatcher who wants the artifact for money and treats the locals like slaves. Travis owes him money as well. The Rock tries to bring home Travis but Travis wants to find the artifact and leads The Rock into a chase from Walken after they fall down a cliff. This is a very unrealistic scene where they fall like 200 feet and bang branches and rocks and should be dead. Many stunts in this movie should have left both main characters dead.
Walken is supererb in this movie drawing many laughes. When he is mad that Scott and The Rock are trying to take the artifact from "his jungle" he goes into a monologue saying "I feel like a little boy who lost his first tooth. I put my tooth under the pillow for the tooth fairy when to burglars break into my house and take the tooth." When the Spanish speaking people don't understand translation he yells that they don't know what the Tooth Fairy is saying "she takes your freakin' tooth and gives you a quarter." This may not sound funny but when he delivers it, it had everybody laughing. Walken delivered many lines like this that got lots of laughs.
Along the way Rosario Dawson joins the adventure as Maryana, a bartender who Scott takes on the adventure because he likes her, but in reality she is a rebel who needs the artifact to make money and defeat Walken. Again, the way this is written is very bad and many times you wonder why the good guys just don't die, but thanks to cheap laughes and great performances from Scott and Walken, I give this a mixed review, but I encourage you to check this out because you may enjoy this, and at 1 hour and 30 minutes, this is totally watchable.
