Film Review: The Rundown (Welcome to the Jungle, 2003)

over 1 year ago

(source: tmdb.org)

There are films, otherwise unremarkable, that contain a detail, sometimes barely noticeable, that makes them important points of film history. In case of Rundown a.k.a. Welcome to the Jungle, 2003 action comedy directed by Peter Berg, that point was symbolic passing of the torch between greatest action star of late 20th Century Hollywood and the greatest action star of early 21st Century Hollywood.

The latter is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who in this film plays Beck, bounty hunter/debt collector a.k.a. “retrieval expert”. Tired of having to use his impressive set of muscles during his line of work, he dreams of switching career to something that would employ his culinary skills and opening a restaurant. Money for that can be obtained by his boss Billy Walker (played by William Lucking), Los Angeles loan shark whose son Travis (played by Seann William Scott) went to Brazil to search for ancient Indian treasure. Beck agrees and flies to El Dorado, small mining town in Amazon jungle, which was founded and currently run by Cornelius Bernard Hatcher (played by Christopher Walken), ruthless American businessman who runs the place and his personal fiefdom and treats local population as slaves. Beck finds Travis, but his mission gets complicated because Travis doesn’t want to leave before finding the treasure, which might be buried within Hatcher’s camp. Both of them receive aid from Mariana (played by Rosario Dawson), local bartender who also happens to member of local resistance movement against Hatcher.

The important moment in Rundown happens at the beginning when Beck, while going to collect debts, passes near unnamed character played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in cameo role, who nods encouragingly and says “Have fun”. With this Schwarzenegger, who will be elected as governor of California few months after the premiere, rather explicitly acknowledged Johnson as his successor. Johnson, who possesses physique worthy of Schwarzenegger in his golden days, proves to be worthy of the title, having just more than enough charisma and acting ability to play protagonist and carry action films on their sholders. For Peter Berg, who had been accused of making his directorial debut Very Bad Things a bit too dark for black comedy, Rundown represented an opportunity to take different, somewhat lighter direction. Script by R. J. Stewart and James Vanderbilt, which was inspired by Indiana Jones and Romancing the Stone with some Midnight Run thrown for good measure, isn’t particularly original nor deep, but it is serviceable, at least to those viewers to those viewers who want nothing more than light entertainment. There was an opportunity for the plot to serve as some sort of commentary on environmental issues and brutal capitalist exploitation of Third World, but Berg missed it and concentrated only on humour, mostly provided by usually annoying Seann William Scott who creates adequate “buddy buddy” dynamic with Johnosn, and action. The latter, especially near the end, includes use of guns although protagonist, in likely authors’ nod to Hollywood leftists’ anti-gun sentiment, expresses dislike for them “because they take him to places he doesn’t want to go”. Christopher Walken is given rather stereotypical and one-dimensional character of villain to work with, but he, like in many similar occasions, elevates the material with inspired performance. Berg as director does a solid job, putting Hawaiian locations (that stand for Brazil) to good use, although the final showdown is too chaotic while being predictable at the same time. Ewen Bremmer, Scottish actor best known as part of Trainspotting ensemble cast, goes a little bit over the top as an Scottish eccentric pilot, and his performance even includes playing the bagpipes during armed confrontation. While there are lot misses in Rundown, Berg and his cast mostly do things right. Although this film represented failure at the box office, it ultimately succeeded in enthroning Johnson as next big man of American cinema.

RATING: 6/10 (++)