The Rundown (2003/HD-DVD)
Picture: B
Sound: B Extras: C- Film: D
Peter Berg is a decent actor who has become a terrible
filmmaker. Instead of getting into his
filmography for which we will deal with some other time, let us think about why
he decided to direct Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Seann William Scott in the
ultra-stupid, ultra-formulaic pseudo-action film The Rundown. After some oddball independent films, this
was considered a commercial move forward, but instead, was a big mistake.
Essentially a very, very, very bad variation of Midnight
Run for morons, Johnson is a bounty hunter who has to retrieve Scott as a
bad boy criminal on the run. Scott
manages to be worse here than he was in The Dukes Of Hazzard, if that
was possible. Anyhow, since Berg and
writers realized they did not have one-one millionth of the chemistry and
comedy potential Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin had in Run, they pull
a lame Jerry Bruckheimer move by having them teaming up to find a lost
treasure. The film also manages to
waste Christopher Walken and Rosario Dawson, but most of all, it wastes the
viewers time with more dumbed-down idiocy so much on automatic pilot, that The
Rock retains his cinematic title as the Vanilla Ice of the action genre. The title is supposed to evoke the “bad ass
realism” of the situation, but the film never lives up to its name. Instead, unless you are dumber than Forrest
Gump, the title will refer to how you will feel after wasting your time on this
mess.
The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image was shot
with little imagination or memorable form by cinematographer Tobias
Schliessler, whose work here seems to indicate that he is actually bored. Join the club! Color is unexciting and it attempt to be “action hip” by simply
having characters be dirty (ala Die Hard, which looks like a Shakespeare
work by comparison) is so beyond bad, it is laughable to those in the
know. The Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix is
also more interested in explosions and fires than having a good sound field and
mix. Poor Harry Gregson-Williams had to
score this mess and even Beethoven could not have saved it. Trailers, deleted scenes, four very boring
featurettes, two commentaries and other junk have been included as extras to
legitimize this mess.
Not surprisingly, it bombed in theaters, then did
better-than-expected home video business.
Still, Hollywood has not learned its lesson that films co-produced by
the man who made the XFL possible are bound to be worthless and now that Vince
McMahon as set up his own film production company, expect more disasters. As for “The Rock” as a big star, it is never
going to happen. The following is not
out there and all he can do is make for a good tax write-off. Let’s see how many more bombs he’ll have to
star in before Hollywood realizes this.
- Nicholas Sheffo
