The Rundown is a solid biff, bam, boom action flick with just the right amount of comedy mixed in.
In The Rundown The Rock plays Beck, a collection agent of sorts, hired to retrieve whatever he is being paid to bring back. In one of the greatest opening sequences I have seen we see just how this job can turn ugly when Beck is hired to retrieve a late payment from a Super Bowl winning quarterback or to go home with his Super Bowl ring.
In the world of retrieval Beck doesn’t negotiate and relies on his mental toughness to just get the job done. He has ambitions to be done with the retrieval business and start a new life as chef of a small restaurant when he is asked to do one last job. Famous last words huh?
Beck is sent by his employer to the Amazon jungle to retrieve something very important to him, his son. Not wanting to wait to get his hands on the $250,000 he ahs been offered to get the young lad Beck takes off for the Amazon but is quickly sent in circles when he meets the wise-ass mark named Travis (Scott), a fast-talking double dealer who has been spending the past few years adventuring in Brazil looking for an ancient artifact called El Gato.
At the sight of Beck it is needless to say that Travis is a bit reluctant to leave, but because of a couple of other complications he brings with him: Mariana (Dawson), a no-nonsense local who holds the answers to some of the jungle’s hidden mysteries, and Hatcher (Walken), an unhinged despot who has turned the jungle and its inhabitants into his own fortune-making, gold-mining empire.
So what does this boil down to? Mariana wants the El Gato to be able to free her people from the tyrant Hatcher, Hatcher wants El Gato so they can’t be freed, Travis wants El Gato for himself, and Beck wants Travis for his $250,000. Sounds easy enough eh?
Well, in a jungle filled with lightning quick rebels, horny monkeys, and some of the most powerfully mind-altering fruit you may ever encounter it isn’t as easy as it may seem to pull off so much mischief. Walken is great as the optimistic tyrant, but it does look like the Budweiser has gone to the waistline just a bit, eh there Mr. Walken.
The Rock pulls off a much better performance than we saw in The Scorpion King as he doesn’t have to deal with the worries of overacting, he can just bully people around in this one just like he does in the wrestling ring as he pushes around Sean William Scott. Just gotta wonder if The Rock has been able to scratch off that wrestling mogul Vince McMahon that holds the rights to his name and his royalties as he is once again listed as Executive Producer on this flick just as he was on The Scorpion King. What a shame.
In the end, as Beck says, “You have two options” (A) Go see The Rundown, (B) We make you go see The Rundown, or (C)…there is not “C.” Check out The Rundown, you won’t regret it.
