Review of The Rundown (2003) by Dawdlingpoet — 25 Nov 2021

This is an action adventure film, with comedic elements and it features themes including hunting and bounty hunters, jungle environments, archaeology and poaching. I've seen a few action/comedy films starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and I've quite enjoyed them, so I thought I'd probably enjoy this too. I like that he doesn't always take himself too seriously in films like these.

Its fair to say this is a decent piece of escapism - its an easy watch, it doesn't require too much analysis/thinking and there are some relatively good instances of action and of comedic moments. Its by no means an excellent, above-average film but its entertaining none-the-less. In this film, 'The Rock' is clearly a fish out of water, when he finds himself away from his more usual urban, city environments and instead in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. He tries to maintain his cool, reserved suave-ness but it doesn't entirely go to plan, as may be expected. The characters are somewhat stereotyped, with the sexy female role going to Rosario Dawson, who plays Mariana, a local in the Amazon and the lazy local beach bum type, someone who isn't especially clever, in this case a guy called Travis Walker, played by Seann William Scott. Meanwhile, Christopher Walken is also present, playing a guy called Hactcher - I enjoyed the scenes where Dwayne Johnson and Christopher Walken were with one another, they both being somewhat determined and tough guy types. At times, the film was a bit reminiscent of a wild west film, one of which being when Beck (the main character played by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson) walks in to the locar bar via the traditional swinging doors. I almost expected him to say 'this town ain't big enough for the both of us' or some such but alas that wasn't to be. There are some decent action scenes, with violence including gunfights and the like, which are quite frenetic and reminded me a bit of the sort of scenes present in films featuring Jackie Chan, with swift movements done almost karate style. It is impressively fast paced at times. The dialogue was alright, sometimes it was relatively sharp but other times it was a bit predictable. I found myself feeling quite surprised and shocked even by some of the turns of events - the dialogue is probably slightly more predictable than the plot overall, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Content wise, the film contains no graphic nudity or sex, although some scantily clad women are shown in a scene at the very start of the film, set in a night club. There are some scenes featuring violence but again nothing graphic is shown, with no blood injuries clearly depicted. There are some examples of strong language present but nothing particularly explicit. This film was given a 12 rating to reflect this.

Yes I'd recommend this film, as its quite entertaining, amusing and with some good action scenes. Its an easy watch and has a good cast as well, although it is a bit cheesy and some of the dialogue may make you cringe a little but overall its worth a watch, I'd say.