The Rundown (2003)

It was pretty damn good. Umm I'm too sleepy to support my view.

I really like it. The first brawl in the club, the capoeira smackdown and the final blast em up are all really solid, bruising action set pieces. You're right about The Rock. He's got charm coming out the wazoo, but he seems to have been cursed this film. Which is a shame, cos he's really got it all for an action star. And Seann William Scott is pretty funny in bits of this as well.

I don't love it as much as many in this site, but it sure has great stuff: the whip fight in the cantina, the neverending fall from the jeep and Chris Walken clearly having a blast (and me with him), especially with that "tooth fairy" bit, are surefire keepers.

Problem is everytime I'm reminded of this movie, I wanna reach out and pop in Romancing the Stone instead.

I can't say that this is a good movie, but it sure is fun.

Didn't care for it. When people were using this to tout The Rock as the next big action hero, I was wanting it to grab me more. I guess I was expecting his Enter The Dragon or Terminator or something. This was more like some kind of Golan-Globus flick.

And that is bad because?

i have been a huge proponent of this flick since I fell in love with it in theaters.

Unfortunately, it is still the Rock's best work.

The film itself still stands up as a modern day action-adventure classic.

Very very well done action set pieces. Sean William Scott is actually likable. Chris Walken is doing his best Chris Walken. Rosario Dawson looking hot and sweaty. Ernie Reyes Jr...need I say more.

Last I heard it was a 100 million dollar flick budget wise for universal. I was surprised to read that, but either way 50 mill domestic was a travesty for this flick.

I'm still waiting for another film that will showcase Johnson's charisma as well as this movie. With Peter Berg's direction and the action scenes, it should have been a bigger hit.

I admit to have not seen this yet. However some exterior scenes of the town were filmed where I used to work because I remember the huge sets and the previous title for the movie when it was called "Helldorado"

Love this film. Part of that love may be that I was expecting it to suck, hard. I haven't gone back to revisit it since my first viewing, so I dunno.

I like it a lot, it's a fun movie. Like Patrick I was expecting it to suck, so it was a pleasant surprise.

Nope, it's still fun. I tell The RUNDOWN you said "Hi."

One of the best B-Action flicks since the 80's, and one of the best PG-13 B-Action flicks, period. Arnie passes the torch in this one and I wish the Rock followed up with something even bigger/better. The guy deserves a chance at the top. Give him something comparable to the T2 or PREDATOR!

The Rock needs to do more movies like this.

I rewatched this recently and it hadn't lost anything in the repeat viewing, which I think is a great, but not very common, trait for an action movie to have.

It's a blast. One of my few favorite modern action movies, and it deserved to make a lot more money than it did.

Unfortunately I missed it in theaters, and only checked it out after reading all the praise directed to it here. Either way, it was totally worth it.

Not to derail but I had no idea Ripoll did films, nice work there.

Agreed, it is as rewatchable as any great action flick. Nice and brutal fight sequences. Just the right amount of Walken-as-Walken. I'm not saying anything new but if the uninitiated stumble onto this thread I want there to be no doubt. The marketing staff must have HATED someone involved with this. That can be the only excuse.

Do you know something I don't? I haven't really made any films. I aspire to, but I haven't made any.

well those videos on youtube. Besides I can't play guitar, you got that skill.

This is a big fave of mine and Johnsons effortless charisma simply has not been used better before or since.

Welcome To The Jungle as its known here in Oceania (MUCH better title IMO) is one of the few films to remind me of the most enjoyable mismatched buddy action comedies of the 80's, its like a little eighties time capsule of awesomeness giving it as much re-watchability as any of the original films Berg was obviously trying to replicate the feel of.

I mean Walken is obviously having a ball, Scott is actually funny and likeable rather than forced and irritating, Dawson is smoking hot and Johnson gets fucked in the face by a demonic-sounding evil baboon. Whats not to love?

Oh and how many films of its type in the modern age have pussied out with weak action endings, unlike the action films of the eighties that just ratchet things up to eleven by the end - Jungle gets this so right its not funny. For the whole film we get Beck saying he never touches guns, that bad things happen when he has a gun in his hand... then he gets two fucking shotguns in the final action sequence and tears an entire fucking town in half. If that shit doesn't get your inner fourteen year old clapping and giggling like a loon, then nothing will.

...and I simply will never understand why or how this film was marketed so appalingly either. First it goes through two cool titles and is finally saddled with the weakest and most uninteresting of the lot (domestically that is), then it gets a poster that looks like it should be for a direct-to-dvd nothing film...



...and finally its released quietly into cinemas with nowhere near the fanfare or teen-targeted marketing it needed to catch on.

Someone behind this film obviously either hatedBerg or simply was a retard with zero confidence in the product they had.

Whereas here in Australia, it got a better title and a better poster...



...and some pretty serious advertising if I recall and did very well at the cinema and is still popular amongst many casual film-goers here today in my experience.

I know it'll never happen but I'd love a sequel to this.

Instead Berg has simply become a must watch director for me ever since I first sat through this at the cinema grinning like a fiend.

"Welcome to the Jungle" is a MUCH better title.

I'm partial to "Helldorado".

Very underrated and very fun. Loved the Rock in this, hell, loved the Arnold cameo. Big shame the Rock has stopped making action films, he had the fighting skills and charm to do quite well.

Great flick, and Walken completely makes the movie. His toothfairy story is hilarious. Caught it in the theater, and picked it up on dvd. I was surprised at how good it actually turned out, and made me a fan of Peter Berg's directing.

Not a fan. Sure the action scenes were sort of interesting but really silly. Plus Sean William Scott is fucking retarded yet again. He adds nothing to the movie at all and isn't he supposed to be the Rock's foil? Oh and all the white people are either stupid or evil.

Have you ever actually watched an action film from the eighties?

Personally, I'm voting no.

Of course and I certainly wouldn't count this as an eighties action film. First of all an eighties action film would of been rated R and the body count would have been high. This movie was missing that in a big way. "I don't use guns, they bring out a side of me I don't like" LOL.

The movie is very good, very well shot and Johnson has fantastic charisma.

It's Stiffler's fault that it bombed. His parts are terrible, the whole Thunder and Lighting bits are unbearable.
If you edit that idiot out of the movie, you get a classic.

Hmm, I dunno. I thought the "fear his gaze" bit was pretty funny, but that's more about how Johnson sells it with his Rock look.

Hey, I liked the "thunder and lightening" bits. In fact, this is the only movie I've seen where Scott at least tries (only a little bit, I'll grant you) to move beyond his quasi-retarded dumb guy schtick.

Also:

"Are you threatening me? Are you threatening me with pee?"

This movie is near-greatness.

I didn't mention that I get an immature chuckle out of the baboon face-rape and the halluci-melon.

I love that you can clearly see The ROCK take many a beating in this, and not some disguised stuntman. As a non-wrestling fan, I give him much love and props for that. That fight with the tiny tribesmen and him crashing through the trees? Ouch.

The only time "Thunder and Lightning" got me was the showdown with the Tom Savini look-alike in the convenience store. The terrified look in that guy's eyes was hilarious.

I was impressed by how much stuntwork he did in this one too. It was also cool to see his cousin as his stunt double - frightening how they look so similar.

I need Samoan genes. Those guys are fucking giants.

This was on English telly a couple of days ago, first time I've seen it. I was really surprised how good it was. The action scenes are excellent, especially that fight with the little fellas...quite brutal.

I found Stifler annoying as well, basically doing the same act he's done in 90% of his movies.

Also that bit at the start with the names and stats of the American Football Players he fights was really lame and gimicky.

It's called Welcome to the Jungle here as well which is a bit of a generic title, much prefer Helldorado

Hell, even "WALKEN Tall" is a better title than "Rundown".


Yeah, I just made that up.

*starts crying and hyperventilating*

In other news, I'm totally watching this sucker over the weekend.

Back in the Top Ten Favorite Films thread I listed The Rundown as one of my many "runner-ups" since I distinctly remember always loving it no matter how many times I saw it or how much time had passed.

I just popped it in again yesterday after a year or more without seeing it and I gotta say, it's still fun as hell.

It put Berg on my "to-watch" list and cemented The Rock as a genuinely good actor and presence.

Plus, it was nice to see Ewen Bremner NOT playing a stupid bumbling soldier after the two-for-two that was Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down.

Favorite line: "I hate this place. I hate penis-eating minnows and I hate freaky fruit. I want to go home. I want concrete. I want homemade tortellini. I want my Los Angeles Lakers. I want to go home, I want to go home, I WANT TO GO HOME! Get out of here, monkeys! Get out of here, monkeys!"

Important to note: Doesn't he say that line half-paralyzed with a numb "Cosby Himself at the dentist" face?

Watched this again last night. I'd seen it once before on TV.


Just a few quick thoughts: It's unfortunate the Rock's planned action career misfired. He has too much charm and talent to be doing "Tooth Fairy" stuff. I kind of have a premonition that he's one or two of those Disney flicks from ending up in Vin Diesel territory. It's difficult not to look at that TF poster and not think "The Pacifier"

Berg does *some* of the action alright, but his ADHD over the top direction annoyed me. A more down to earth take on the material would have helped the film, IMHO. The script was so paper thin that Berg's car commercial aesthetic kind of amplified the stories failings


Such as.....

THE ENTIRE THRUST OF THE LAST ACT MAKES ZERO SENSE


SWS is wrestling with whether or not to give the Gatto to a museum or sell it for a profit on the black market. The rebels argue against giving it to a museum because they need funds. If he sold it, or the rebels sold it, they could finance their war against Walken.

I don't need to summarize it for you, if you're reading this, you've seen the film and know it's plot

Soll

Obviously none of the drama surrounding the Gato's fate makes a lick of sense.

Why?

Because a museum would also pay for the gato. Museums would LOVE to pay for something like that. If it's such a big deal they'd want it in their collection in order to drive attendance.

When you consider the fact that the film is partially aping RAIDERS, and RAIDERS had the line "they're good pieces, Marcus" "The museum will buy them as usual, no questions asked", it becomes especially moronic (IMHO)

Issues where museums have purchased cultural treasures for their collections are in the headlines week in and week out. To write a script in ignorance of such a basic fact flies in the face of common sense. It's a big reason I can't rank the film any higher than I do


PS
The film ends on a supposedly happy note, when in fact a priceless anthropological treasure is about to disappear into the hands of a private collector.

Oh, PS, a quick thing about evolutionary biology that occured to me last night

Those evil phallus minnows.. why on earth do they do what they do? Surely anyone attacked in such a fashion would not rest until they dislodged (and killed) the spiny fish.


It's not an effective survival strategy, it seems to me

PPS I have the same question about strawberries. How did they evolve? They're non poisonous, non thorned, delicious and soft, and right at ground level. I don't get it.

By enticing animals to eat them.

The fruit is digested, and the seeds are fertilized.

Ah ok, thanks. That makes sense I guess. I wouldn't have figured that strawberry seeds would survive digestion, seeing as they are muy pequeño

EDIT: The minnow remains a mystery to me though

Watched this again for the first time in years... and it still holds up. Rather marvelously, at that. Laundry list!:
 

-Man, what the hell, Peter Berg? In just under a decade, you go from this to fucking Battleship. In addition to coaxing some magnificent performances out of his cast, he shows a real command of action scenes here, and a variety at that: we have fist fights, whip fights, martial arts bouts, tumbling down the longest hill in history, and one of the best, most wild-ass action climaxes of the last decade.

 

-I liked The Scorpion King. It was not great by any stretch, but it showed The Rock could carry a movie, and it ended up as more or less a feature-length, slightly higher-budgeted Hercules or Xena episode. But this? This is a magnificent showcase for The Rock, in that he gets to play a character who *hates* violence. I love that he's a reluctant warrior, and honestly, he's a better actor than Arnie (who I love) ever was. His timing and chemistry with everyone around him is impeccable.

 

-I too love that he visibly gets his ass beat for about half an hour between the hill tumble, the traps which lead to the monkeys, and then Ernie Reyes, Jr. and company.

 

-I like that Sean William Scott actually gets in on the action at certain points, and he does seem like he's playing a slacker with hidden intelligence. The movie also introduced me to Rosario Dawson, and for that I am forever grateful. Walken is Walken, but he does that so well I find it hard to complain, and the entire Tooth Fairy speech is classic. Jon Gries is also great as Walken's brother, and Ewen Bremner's accent is nigh-impenetrable but hilarious.

 

-Hand to God, I swear the entire cave sequence where they nab El Gato Diablo reminded me of Uncharted, even though this came out a few years before the first game. It seems like the kind of trap Nathan Drake would encounter.

 

-The Hawaii location shooting is *gorgeous*, and I love the town set. Which is of course totally destroyed by the end.

 

-I like to think that Beck and Travis ended up as partners (not like THAT) on the restaurant.

 

 

Had to chime in here Chris as THE RUNDOWN has been a modern fave of mine sine I saw it in theaters initially.  It is a real masterpiece in my opinion.  The only part that always fell flat for me was the UNCHARTED/INDIANA JONES esque contraption hiding the "gato".  That felt a little cheap and out of place for me.

 

The finale with the dual shotguns still holds up for me as one of the best on screen uses of firearms EVER.

 

Great great great movie.  it really should have been the crown jewel in THE ROCK's filmography of action classics...unfortunately his handlers had other ideas for the type of projects he should be in...it didn't help that the movie was a big flop from what I recall.

 

it seems The Rock is back on track a bit, so maybe THE RUNDOWN will become Dwayne's RAW DEAL, which hopefully means he is gonna give us some real memorable films in the foreseeable future ala everyone else's barometer: ARNOLD

Well, I think The Rock still had an intriguing career for a bit after this. The Walking Tall remake was solid if unspectacular, I actually think the Witch Mountain reimagining is the best of his family films since he actually gets to kick a little ass in it, and I've heard he did some interesting work in stuff like Be Cool and Southland Tales. It's when you get into crap like The Game Plan, Planet 51, and ESPECIALLY The Tooth Fairy that things start going downhill.

 

I've heard that he's pretty good in Fast Five (which I actually want to see now), and he certainly looks to be a highlight of G.I. Joe Retaliation.

Also, I normally hate the hell out of strobe-lit action scenes, but the opening club fight still manages to work for me (the other exception to this rule: Hit Girl's rescue mission in Kick-Ass). Maybe it's because Berg doesn't go overboard with quick cutting in addition to the strobe effect.

 

 

that opening club scene (dont forget about the "Have Fun" arnold cameo!) was great.  It was a bit hectically cut, but I think it fit the scene.  I liked how Berg edited in football highlights while Beck  sized up the football crew.

 

And GO WATCH FAST FIVE RIGHT NOW.  EASILY THE BEST IN THE SERIES.  Just an amazing action film all together.  THE ROCK is the coup de grace to that movie

Apparently that football footage was from Vince McMahon's ill-fated XFL venture.

 

One thing I appreciate about the screenplay is that it tells us just enough about the characters' pasts to understand where they are now, and keeps this kind of exposition with the characters. Beck speaks about his rough youth in very vague, oblique terms, but it's a character choice; he clearly doesn't want to tell Mariana or Travis any true sordid details because he hates remembering them. We learn Travis dropped out of Stanford after two years (presumably to search for the Gato), but then there's that scene at the end between him and Billy (very well-played by William Lucking). The latter mentions something about shipping Travis back to Chicago, to which he snarks back that he didn't know "she" was married. I love that we don't get any more information about whatever this is. Beck's facial reaction is enough to sell the idea that if Travis goes to Chicago, he might very well not come back.