Stumbling Tall
Walking Tall, The Rock's follow up to last year's surprisingly good The Rundown, is an abysmal bore that even its star's obvious charisma can't save. A hybrid of WWE Smackdown and The Andy Griffith Show, the movie presents a vision of a small town police state that is at once ludicrous and chilling.
It's too bad, because The Rock, as he has shown in his previous outings, deserves something much, much better. The guy is no Olivier, but he can carry a scene and deliver lines better than any of the beefed up action stars of the last quarter century. That he has to waste his time on this non-remake of the Joe Don Baker minor classic is a pity both for him and the audience that has to endure it.
The Rock plays Chris Vaughn, a retired Army special forces non-comm who is returning home after years of being away. His little Podunk town has changed thanks to Jay Hamilton (Neal McDonough), who has closed his family's mill, opened a casino and introduced a seedy element into this latter day Mayberry. During a night out at the casino, Vaughn learns (gasp) that it is crooked and gets a bit physical with the staff, which overpowers him and leaves him for dead. One thing leads to another and Vaughn becomes sheriff of the local community and brings a whole new concept of police brutality and personal justice to the job.
There are many problems with Walking Tall, but the fundamental one is The Rock's Vaughn. This is a character that literally has no thought processes. He is simply a piece of meat that goes from scene to scene reacting in a visceral, range of the moment sort of way. Yes, it is satisfying seeing The Rock dispatch six henchmen, but the fact that he is—rightly—arrested and tried for the crime (for which he gets off in a stunning display of cinematic jury nullification) shows that this is a guy who doesn't really think things out. He is a cardboard character that we don't really care about.
Walking Tall is an action movie at its most basic. It is all action, which will appeal mostly to teenaged boys. But this is what makes the movie a failure. There is little motivation for any of the characters' actions apart from reacting to an immediate wrong. Yes, Vaughn should be angry that his nephew Pete (Khleo Thomas) was given crystal meth by henchmen at the casino, but he should also be angry with his bone-headed nephew for taking dope in the first place. That he reacts by destroying the casino and potentially getting himself sent to prison for years shows that bone-headedness, not cleverness, runs in this movie family.
But the sheer implausibility of the plot, which includes police tactics that even in a movie universe are questionable (why, for instance, isn't the state police brought in to help bring Hamilton to justice?), is nothing compared to the nonchalant attitude the picture has toward this little police state. That it is administered at the end by a supposed good guy, Vaughn, doesn't mean it is any less a totalitarian state in which a "lawman" can enforce his personal will on the town by means of the authority his badge has. True, this is just a stupid action movie, but the implications of this attitude, particularly in our post-9/11 world are chilling, could have added a dimension to the movie that it sorely needed.
The cast runs through their lines with a sort of professional flatness that characterizes this sort of flick. The only noticeable exception is Johnny Knoxville (Jackass) as Vaughn's Barney Fife-esque friend and deputy Ray. Knoxville is actually shows a bit of a range that suggests there's a good actor lurking underneath his MTV-fed exterior. The only performance that verges on the disastrous is Ashley Scott (TV's Birds of Prey) as love interest Deni. She's fetching, but there is little chemistry between her and The Rock.
Walking Tall is yet another entry in a growing line of disposable movies that have no shelf life and no reason for being, and should just be ignored until its expiration date passes.
It's too bad, because The Rock, as he has shown in his previous outings, deserves something much, much better. The guy is no Olivier, but he can carry a scene and deliver lines better than any of the beefed up action stars of the last quarter century. That he has to waste his time on this non-remake of the Joe Don Baker minor classic is a pity both for him and the audience that has to endure it.
The Rock plays Chris Vaughn, a retired Army special forces non-comm who is returning home after years of being away. His little Podunk town has changed thanks to Jay Hamilton (Neal McDonough), who has closed his family's mill, opened a casino and introduced a seedy element into this latter day Mayberry. During a night out at the casino, Vaughn learns (gasp) that it is crooked and gets a bit physical with the staff, which overpowers him and leaves him for dead. One thing leads to another and Vaughn becomes sheriff of the local community and brings a whole new concept of police brutality and personal justice to the job.
There are many problems with Walking Tall, but the fundamental one is The Rock's Vaughn. This is a character that literally has no thought processes. He is simply a piece of meat that goes from scene to scene reacting in a visceral, range of the moment sort of way. Yes, it is satisfying seeing The Rock dispatch six henchmen, but the fact that he is—rightly—arrested and tried for the crime (for which he gets off in a stunning display of cinematic jury nullification) shows that this is a guy who doesn't really think things out. He is a cardboard character that we don't really care about.
Walking Tall is an action movie at its most basic. It is all action, which will appeal mostly to teenaged boys. But this is what makes the movie a failure. There is little motivation for any of the characters' actions apart from reacting to an immediate wrong. Yes, Vaughn should be angry that his nephew Pete (Khleo Thomas) was given crystal meth by henchmen at the casino, but he should also be angry with his bone-headed nephew for taking dope in the first place. That he reacts by destroying the casino and potentially getting himself sent to prison for years shows that bone-headedness, not cleverness, runs in this movie family.
But the sheer implausibility of the plot, which includes police tactics that even in a movie universe are questionable (why, for instance, isn't the state police brought in to help bring Hamilton to justice?), is nothing compared to the nonchalant attitude the picture has toward this little police state. That it is administered at the end by a supposed good guy, Vaughn, doesn't mean it is any less a totalitarian state in which a "lawman" can enforce his personal will on the town by means of the authority his badge has. True, this is just a stupid action movie, but the implications of this attitude, particularly in our post-9/11 world are chilling, could have added a dimension to the movie that it sorely needed.
The cast runs through their lines with a sort of professional flatness that characterizes this sort of flick. The only noticeable exception is Johnny Knoxville (Jackass) as Vaughn's Barney Fife-esque friend and deputy Ray. Knoxville is actually shows a bit of a range that suggests there's a good actor lurking underneath his MTV-fed exterior. The only performance that verges on the disastrous is Ashley Scott (TV's Birds of Prey) as love interest Deni. She's fetching, but there is little chemistry between her and The Rock.
Walking Tall is yet another entry in a growing line of disposable movies that have no shelf life and no reason for being, and should just be ignored until its expiration date passes.
