The Rundown Review
by Bob Bloom (bobbloom AT iquest DOT net)September 26th, 2003
THE RUNDOWN (2003) 2 1/2 stars out of 4. Starring The Rock Seann William Scott, Christopher Walken, Rosario Dawson, Ewan Bremner, Jon Gries and William Lucking. Story by R.J. Stewart. Screenplay by R.J. Stewart and James Vanderbilt. Directed by Peter Berg. Rated PG-13. Running time: Approx. 90 mins.
The Rundown blithely combines action, adventure and comedy in a B-movie formula that moves swiftly and makes no demands on its audience.
Because the film has no pretensions, director Peter Berg, working from a script by R.J. Stewart and James Vanderbilt, based on a story by Stewart, just run with the outrageous premise and have fun with it.
The Rock plays Beck, a retriever, who uses whatever it takes to bring back whatever he is hired to return. Beck, though, is tired of this rough-and-tumble business and has his heart set on opening a restaurant.
But to reach that goal he has to do one more job; travel to the Amazon and return the wise-cracking son (Seann William Scott) of his boss.
Once there, Beck winds up in the middle of a rebellion against a tyrannical mine owner (Christopher Walken) who is exploiting the populace.
It's all silly, of course, with enough bone-crunching brawls to hospitalize a regiment for a month, but naturally characters merely pick themselves up and dust themselves off just like Wile E. Coyote.
Wrestling mogul Vince McMahon is one of the film's executive producers, so that's a clue about the type of antiseptic violence that abounds during the fight sequences.
Most of the humor rests with Scott, who smirks his way through the proceedings, while the by-play between his Travis and The Rock's Beck becomes a repetitive series of obnoxious remarks from Travis followed by either exasperated looks or a punch in the nose from Beck.
The Rock, whose real name is Dwayne Johnson, does have a career ahead of him as an action star. He brings a certain tongue-in-cheek attitude to his work, which he will need when doing genre films such as The Rundown.
Walken brings his usual eccentricities to a one-dimensional character, blending humor and menace in his corrupt Hatcher.
The Rundown, which runs about 90 minutes, does contain some deadly moments that seem out of context with the tone of the majority of the adventure.
This feature is a fall screen filler that will do business for a week or two then quickly fade away. Thankfully, it moves quickly and tells its story in a straightforward, black-and-white manner.
Let's just consider The Rundown as a sort of smackdown in the jungle.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, IN. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or at [email protected]. Other reviews by Bloom can be found at www.jconline.com by clicking on movies.
Bloom's reviews also appear on the Web at the Rottentomatoes Web site, www.rottentomatoes.com and at the Internet Movie Database:
http://www.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Bob+Bloom
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