

Rock solid

Most action movies can be boiled down to a simple recipe: Throw in several servings of bone-crunching (and well-choreographed) violence, sprinkle in some comic relief, add a dash of T&A and mix well. A well-developed plot, of course, isn't essential.

"Walking Tall," a movie that's loosely based on a '70s movie that's loosely based on a true story, follows this recipe to a T.

Chris Vaughn (The Rock) has just returned to his hometown after an eight-year stint in the Army. His happy homecoming gets cut short, though, when he realizes that life at home has changed for the worse. The town's resident rich-kid has built a casino that specializes in crooked gambling and drug peddling, and not only are the cops unwilling to do anything about it, they're on the take. When his young nephew ODs on the drugs being pushed by the casino, Chris takes his trusty 2x4 and goes into full whup-ass mode for truth, justice, and the, the...

Okay, I'm not even gonna bother finishing the plot synopsis. You've seen this movie a hundred times. It's the same "one man against all odds" bull that could ONLY happen in the movies And you know what? The plot doesn't even matter. Not one iota, I tell you. Because if you try to wrap your head around all of the plotholes, unanswered questions, and instances in which logic flies out the window, you'd be missing the point: This isn't so much a movie as it is an infomercial for The Rock and his ability to kick ass.

The Rock might not be the best actor, but he isn't bad, and my guess is that he'll get better. And he's got that rarest of rare qualities: charisma. When he's on the screen, you can't look at anything else. The man commands your attention.

But all that notwithstanding, the thing that really got me was his physicality. No, not the fact that he's muscular, almost to cartoonish proportions, that's been done before. It's the fact that, despite his massiveness, The Rock is graceful. I'm talkin' John Woo "Bullet Ballet" graceful. He's like Jet Li trapped in Arnold Schwarzenegger's body. And the action scenes (of which there are many) benefit immensely from The Rock's ability to act and do his own stunts.

Johnny Knoxville pops up as his sidekick and Ashley Scott (the T & A) is the ex-girlfriend-turned-stripper-turned-ex-stripper-turned-girlfriend-again. They both do good work (believe it or not, Johnny Knoxville also benefits from the combo of "not-too-shabby" acting and his own stuntwork abilities), and truth be told, everyone does a good job from the rich-kid villain, to the crooked cops, to Chris' family, to Kevin Bray's direction. Everything's good. Not bad. Not great. Just good.

But when the Rock's onscreen and the camera is smart enough to stay out of his way, the familiar action-movie recipe adds something that's been missing for way too long: A big heaping spoonful of fun.

Copyright © 2014, Hartford Courant
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