Rundown [Blu-ray]

But if you're renting/buying this movie to see The Rock and/or a good action movie, you won't be disappointed. If you want that AND a plot, well...2 outta 3 ain't bad!

Onto the DVD extras. THIS is the reason I'm buying the DVD. My husband and I were laughing so hard we could barely breathe. It was like a whole separate bonus comedy after the movie!! Their chemistry is even more apparent on this section and the behind the scenes stuff was just great.

Of course, in an action movie like the Rundown, we don't expect to find the next Olivier or DeNiro, but even in its genre, the Rundown is nothing special, only notable for the Rock being in it, and as discussed, this is no great feature. The story has him as a bounty hunter named Beck who wants to be a cook in his own restaurant. (That's around the extent of the cleverness of this film: the idea of a macho character actually wanting to be something considered non-macho is supposed to be ironically funny, and maybe it would be if it hasn't already been done before numerous times.) Hired by a mobster to find his son, Beck goes off to South America where he runs into complications involving a ruthless miner (played by Christopher Walken in one of his weaker performances...and he's still the best in the bunch), an ancient artifact and a bunch of rebels (who actually aren't rebels in that they are defying Walken, not rebelling against the government). The result is a mishmash of many, often better movies, most notably Raider of the Lost Ark and Midnight Run.

How is the action itself? Okay, but usually overly stylized, as the director tries to show off how clever he can be. The result is that the direction is on the same level as the acting and writing, which is unimpressive at best. Beck is neither particularly bright and his fighting level seems to fluctuate with the demands of the scene: early on, he takes on several football players without breaking a sweat, then later on he has his problems going one-on-one with a small (albeit nasty) rebel, and even Sean William Scott is occasionally a challenge.

With okay action and little else to recommend it, this barely gets two stars. This is a movie that is overdirected, underwritten and woodenly acted. If you're stuck watching it, you will survive, but even in the field of cheesy action movies, there are a lot better films out there.