This film could have been more appropriately titled Midnight Rundown, as this action picture has quite a bit in common with a certain Robert
DeNiro/Charles Grodin flick. But then that particular movie was much better than this one.

In The Rundown, The Rock plays Beck, a bounty hunter who desperately wants out of his field. The bulky tough guy is forced to embark on one last job; find Travis (played by Seann William Scott), a smart ass who now resides
somewhere in the Amazon Jungle, and bring him back to the states. Not surprisingly, there are many obstacles standing in Beck's way including a ruthless villain played with typical ferocity by the spectacular Christopher Walken.

In all honesty, I went into this movie ready to hate it. The trailer is positively dreadful and the footage I saw at ShoWest last March didn't make the film look any better. Thankfully, The Rundown isn't complete garbage. It certainly isn't Bad Boys 2 bad. Unfortunately, the movie isn't all that memorable either.

Lets talk about what does work. The Rock does emerge as a true action star here. He definitely has the talent and charisma to be "the next big thing." While it's perfectly clear that he has the look for this kind of movie, it should also be noted that he isn't a half bad actor and even shows a bit of a knack for comic delivery. He's come a long way from the WWF. In The Rundown, he makes his character far more interesting than he should have been.

As good as The Rock is, Christopher Walken steals every scene he's in which isn't at all surprising. There is a moment in this movie in which he's trying to explain things to a group of locals who don't understand English. Walken's determination and reactions are priceless.

I also really enjoyed Rosario Dawson who seems much more talented than her choice in roles would suggest. She's engaging and quite beautiful and I can only hope that she takes her talent to the next level in the upcoming epic
Alexander.

Sadly, The Rundown doens't have much else to offer. Some of the action sequences are quite thrilling, most notably the one in which The Rock and Scott take a tumble down a rather large mountain. But there is way too much of that "fighting for the sake of fighting" kind of stuff that has a way of making an audience drowsy.

Seann William Scott is essentially doing what he always does, only he's toned it down a notch. He also takes every opportunity to pull off his
shirt, no doubt trying to prove that he's much more than a comical actor. What really bothered me was the lack of chemistry between he and The Rock. As was the case with Scott and Chow Yun Fat in the dreadful Bulletproof Monk, Scott and The Rock somehow manage to be lesser than the sum of the parts.

Director Peter Berg (a man primarily known for acting in everything from Wes Craven's Shocker to TV.'s Chicago Hope) does keep the energy level up. The Rundown is fast and furious and extremely light on it's toes. The early moments of the picture are very entertaining as The Rock enters a night club where he must engage in business with an entire NFL football team. The
sequence is preceded by one of the funniest cameos I've seen in quite sometime. I don't want to give anything away, so let me just say that the torch has been passed. At the very least, this is a step above Berg's critically panned Very Bad Things, and the film maker even has a good enough sense of humor to make a joke at that movie's expense.

The movie really fails because of repetition. Many of the action sequences begin to repeat themselves, and most of the hand-to-hand combat scenes look the same. Add to this the familiarity of the material and the lack of
chemistry between The Rock and Scott and you have a film that just never really comes together.

I wouldn't say I hated this movie. I watched it with The Boneman and he certainly didn't like it. (Then again that fruity bastard liked The Hours) I
thought it had it's moments. I'd also have to say that The Rock could quite possibly be on his way to a big film career. Hopefully, the sporadically entertaining The Rundown is a mere stepping stone to something bigger and better.