Rundown, The

I am a long time Christopher Walken fan. I walked into this film expecting him to dominate it the way he does every film; silently delivering powerful lines through gritted teeth and expressive eyes. Not this time. He character, written as if it were built to be played by Walken, was blown away by The Rock’s performance. I say performance purposefully. His stunts were amazing, leaving me hunched in my theater seat feeling each hit, each strike, each tree trunk to the head. Blow after blow, I was amazed that he somehow actually stand up in reality. The Rock plays Beck, a powerhouse of a bounty hunter and Shylock. He never misses his mark, and never forgets to do it with style. This time, his mark is his boss’ son, who happens to be hidding out in the middle of the amazon jungle. This movie has just about everything, action, humor, truly amazing fight scenes, a thick plot, well developed and well casted characters, experienced actors who deliver an incredible performance. See this movie for the fight scenes alone! Every one of them, and there are many, left me feeling the actor’s pain. Each hit, bone splitting crunch, head smashing thump, every last one, resonated in my body. A particular scene highlights The Rock’s body as a sack of potatoes as he falls down a tree, each branch tossing and bashing his body. Each hit made me wince in pain. Even my Girlfriend winced noticeably! And she doesn’t even have.. um…. you know, jewels! This is director Pete Berg’s second directorial command. His first movie, Very Bad Things has achieved almost cult status. If he keeps this up, he’ll over take Quentin as the Hollywood underdog. To get back to my original statement, Walken delivers hit after hit, all of his power blasting through his one liners. “That’s a lot of cows,” and the ever so simple, “Owwwww!” Had me holding my stomach in pain. I couldn’t stop laughing. Take the time and see it in the theaters! See it with the crowd! Oh, and I won’t ruin it for you, but there is an awesome ‘passing of the torch’ scene within the first few minutes of the film. One Action star to another, “Have Fun!”