Get yer ROCKS off... (Walking Tall (DVD))

Member Name: theediscerning

Product:	Walking Tall (DVD)
Date:	08/02/06 (102 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brevity

Disadvantages: *Insert something rude here*

... our cinema screens.

(First clue that this in an old op cut and pasted...)

The learning curve at the beginning of Walking Tall is an excessively shallow one. Twenty minutes or so into the film we have learnt the following...

The Rock plays Chris Vaughn, a soldier returning to his home village somewhere in the US. He meets up with his stately father, homely and loving mother, and sister, and for the first real time, gets to meet his nephew by said sister ~ he's been away for almost a decade and toddler has grown considerably in that time.

We learn through various back-slapping, ad-libbed script-sounding scenes who his friends are. We learn through a completely ridiculous and unnecessary American football game in the park between said friends that the blonde chap with the bright blue eyes who they used to be friendly with is now the film's baddy. Oh, and the nephew is going off the rails a bit...

While we're still wondering what the purpose of all this badly-put across nonsense is, the lads go out for the night, at the invitation of said baddy. He's not only the film's baddy, but the whole town's ~ the monied heir to a timber mill which was the whole employment prospect for the region, he's closed it down, opened a gaudy casino / sex joint complex, and is making money hand over, er, any body part you care to mention.

It's so obvious the baddy is the baddy you can't help but wonder why on earth everyone is completely carefree about accepting his invite to a VIP session ~ at the bar, and on the tables and other pieces of furniture.

Until finally we get to find out what might be happening plotwise. Our Rock notices his friend's craps game is being doctored with loaded dice, and so causes a fight. Although he's a meaty power-house, he gets duffed up. Then unnecessarily sliced up.

For the rest of the film we watch the Rock become the most unlikely cinema vigilante in its history, as he decides to get his revenge on said blonde baddy and clean the town up.

We will *shiver with delirium* as he wins the most pathetically-portrayed court scene of all time.

We will *stagger back to the popcorn stand* during the most risible shoot-out ever to disgrace celluloid (yes, even worse then The Untouchables' ending).

We will *probably shake our heads clean off* as he leaps from the court-room and straight into the sherrif's seat simply by showing his assailants' body-work to the jury, it seems.

For this is a story with a twist in the making, if not in the telling. It seems it was based on a true story, way back when, of an innocent chap who wandered into fixing corruption in his home town. This was made a movie first in 1973, and this mish-mash is apparently based on the facts, and that first screenplay, and the efforts of about six others more recently.

But it is hard to put across just how bad this film is. There's the fact that when he goes to the casino, Vaughn gets entertained by the only female in the town who remembers him ~ who immediately has to become the tart with a heart. The film seems to ignore completely the fact that he would probably have been unwelcome as the product of a mixed-race marriage, and just inserts him into the sherrif's job without any backing from anybody in town. (So a regular American election, then...)

The original sherrif who knows the finances of the casino are shored up by dodgy dealers, and is happy as it lines his and the town's pockets more, is just pathetic, mugging around like the people in the background of Sherrif John Burnett on The World's Craziest Police Chases.

Everyone else is completely wooden as well, apart perhaps from the two main leads. For Vaughn has a best friend and side-kick-cum-deputy in the form of Johnny Knoxville, from Jackass (and other films, to his credit). He is actually alright, and what few smatterrings of titters there are are mostly down to him.

The Rock seems to be trying to break out into the world of cinema acting away from the adventure and CGI genres of the Scorpion King role he is best known for. And he isn't too bad here ~ he has good facial expression, if you can get past what an odd-looking face it is. He seems to be getting to grips with the process of trying to look sad, angered, engaged with humans etc, rather than production assistants standing in front of blue screens pretending to be skeletal warriors.

But any kudos he brings to the action here is completely ruined by the direction. We've already said how lengthy the build-up to the film is, and when we're at the peak we still have absolutely no idea what the purpose of the film is. It's a certificate 15, apparently, but the beat-em-up scenes are filmed absolutely pathetically.

And there are several to get through. And they are all the same ~ shaky, hand-held style cameras, and such rapid cutting they successfully hide the fact that any punches ever landed. When he has cause to return to the casino with a lump of wood and smash the place up, it so obviously bounces off a hoodlum's arm it's supposed to be breaking. Yet throughout the fisticuffs the director shows no intelligence whatsoever ~ he has learnt nothing of having a stable camera to actually convince us of the moves the Rock is pulling.

Perhaps he's just a lumbering oaf who owes his hard-man stature to WWE...

The final fight is more stable and convincing in its crunchiness, but just as unrealistic ~ people fall down several storeys' height, slither miles down through forests (what is this, Scooby Doo Too?) and are indestructible ~ all except Vaughn that is.

And that final fight over, that's it. Just 80 minutes from the anti-piracy trailer, we're shuffling out. We've seen the flimsiest plot since the first draft of the Mister Men Movie, the most mediocre acting since Michael Winner first heard "Hello Mum, I'm on the telly!" ring from behind him, and the worst camera action since Derek Jarman's Blue.

If you want an action movie, forget it ~ all you get are three or four punch-ups, some slapstick and *that* gun-fight, and that's that. If you want a small-town hero come good film, you're almost there, as this is *sort-of* one of those. It's just such a weak effort at the genre it will appeal to no-one.

If you want a post-action film action film, one with less emphasis on blood and more on heart, then you need to get out more. If this knocked-up-on-the-spot effort is the best that sub-genre can do, it's dead in the water before it's out the bottle (no, sorry it's *genie* and bottle, isn't it?).

And so this op will end suddenly too ~ no mention of when it came out, who made it, etc. The experience should be best forgotten, and no-one who made it should be shamed with their names in public. It's only in response to the fact that dooyoo have given this VHS release a belated nod that this op has been raked up at all.

Purely the most pointless film of the year, and the worst thing seen in cinemas since the Evil Orange Producer first rhymed "mobile" with "disposal".


If you *must* consider it, look out for the great version of Blue Monday in a slow scene ~ it's the one thing that lit up the imdb message boards...

Summary: The Rock rolls across our screens in pointless and weak revenge actioner