The Rundown starts in Los Angeles where tough bounty hunter Beck (The Rock) decides he wants out of the business to open his own restaurant & accepts one last job from his mobster boss Billy Walker (William Lucking) to make enough money to realise his ambition. Beck has to find Billy's son Travis (Seann William Scott) who has disappeared in an Amazonian village in Brazil somewhere & bring him back to Los Angeles, sounds easy & Beck has no trouble finding Travis but also finds that the guy who runs the town is an evil businessman named Hatcher (Christopher Walken) who uses the natives as cheap labour to mine for gold in appalling conditions so he can get rich & when Hatcher discovers that Travis has found a solid gold ancient statue worth millions he wants it. Beck has to protect Travis who is less than co-operative anyway & fight off Hatcher's men who have orders to kill...
Directed by Peter Berg this is also known under the title Welcome to the Jungle (which was it's working title apparently along with Call of the Wild & Helldorado) just about everywhere other than the US this is a decent enough if unspectacular action comedy. I think the makers were trying to make a throwback to the larger than life action comedies of the 80's & early 90's & in particular Midnight Run (1988) as both share the same basic set-up & plot with a typical mismatched pairing of likable heroes up against a bad guy who has a whole army at his disposal, there are the expected fights, the one-liners, a romance subplot, lots of over the top set-pieces including a fall down a cliff that would have broken every bone in your body & a final where the two lone heroes face up to massive overwhelming odds as they are helplessly outnumbered but still come out on top. The story here is weak, it's not even that fun to watch & it feels like exposition & character development was left on the cutting room floor to quicken the pace as we never learn anything about Hatcher, very little about Travis or why he hates his father & a subplot involving some native rebels is over just as soon as it starts & for some reason there are two baffling scenes with Monkeys that I think are meant to be funny or have some relevance but aren't & don't. At just over 100 minutes it moves along at a decent pace & it's watchable but just not brilliant in any regard, the character's are hollow, the action is tame, the plot feels unfinished & there's little here to distinguish The Rundown from any straight to video action flick.
My main problem with The Rundown was that the action scenes just aren't that memorable, there are a few cool fights, a shoot-out at the end & a couple of exploding vehicles but nothing else & even the main bad guy gets a lacklustre death. The scenery looks nice I will say that but one tree looks pretty much like any other. There doesn't seem to be too many CGI computer effects here which is good to see & the stunt work is generally good but it did feel very familiar.
The IMDb says this had a budget of about $85,000,000 & that amazes me as I can't really see where the money went, sure there one or two decent explosions & some fight scenes but nothing else really stands out. Although set in the Amazon in Brazil this was filmed in Hawaii. The cast are alright, The Rock is OK, Seann William Scott isn't that funny here while Christopher Walken is wasted. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a cameo at the start & Ewan Bremner as the comedy relief Scottish plane pilot is awful.
The Rundown is an OK action comedy adventure that has a familiar feel to it & maybe isn't as big as it should have been since the set-piece action scenes really are nothing to get excited about.
Directed by Peter Berg this is also known under the title Welcome to the Jungle (which was it's working title apparently along with Call of the Wild & Helldorado) just about everywhere other than the US this is a decent enough if unspectacular action comedy. I think the makers were trying to make a throwback to the larger than life action comedies of the 80's & early 90's & in particular Midnight Run (1988) as both share the same basic set-up & plot with a typical mismatched pairing of likable heroes up against a bad guy who has a whole army at his disposal, there are the expected fights, the one-liners, a romance subplot, lots of over the top set-pieces including a fall down a cliff that would have broken every bone in your body & a final where the two lone heroes face up to massive overwhelming odds as they are helplessly outnumbered but still come out on top. The story here is weak, it's not even that fun to watch & it feels like exposition & character development was left on the cutting room floor to quicken the pace as we never learn anything about Hatcher, very little about Travis or why he hates his father & a subplot involving some native rebels is over just as soon as it starts & for some reason there are two baffling scenes with Monkeys that I think are meant to be funny or have some relevance but aren't & don't. At just over 100 minutes it moves along at a decent pace & it's watchable but just not brilliant in any regard, the character's are hollow, the action is tame, the plot feels unfinished & there's little here to distinguish The Rundown from any straight to video action flick.
My main problem with The Rundown was that the action scenes just aren't that memorable, there are a few cool fights, a shoot-out at the end & a couple of exploding vehicles but nothing else & even the main bad guy gets a lacklustre death. The scenery looks nice I will say that but one tree looks pretty much like any other. There doesn't seem to be too many CGI computer effects here which is good to see & the stunt work is generally good but it did feel very familiar.
The IMDb says this had a budget of about $85,000,000 & that amazes me as I can't really see where the money went, sure there one or two decent explosions & some fight scenes but nothing else really stands out. Although set in the Amazon in Brazil this was filmed in Hawaii. The cast are alright, The Rock is OK, Seann William Scott isn't that funny here while Christopher Walken is wasted. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a cameo at the start & Ewan Bremner as the comedy relief Scottish plane pilot is awful.
The Rundown is an OK action comedy adventure that has a familiar feel to it & maybe isn't as big as it should have been since the set-piece action scenes really are nothing to get excited about.