John Cena has an idea of how to deal with Randy Orton.
(20th Century Fox) John Cena, Steve Harris, Ashley Scott, Aidan Gillen, Brian White, Gonzalo Melendez, Taylor Cole. Directed by Renny Harlin
Police officers are sworn to serve and protect the populace, but the fact is that they are all only human. When everything they love is on the line, how far would one police officer go?
In New Orleans, the feds are tracking Miles Jackson (Gillen), a notorious terrorist, but he turns out to be far too clever for them and escapes their clutches with the aid of his girlfriend Erica (Cole) and accomplice. He is not too clever, however, to avoid the eagle-eyed NOPD patrolman Danny Fisher (Cena) who spots the terrorist’s escape vehicle being driven by his girlfriend. Despite his partner Hank Carver’s (White) misgivings, Danny pulls them over not realizing Miles is hiding in the trunk.
A shoot-out ensues in which Carver is shot, although not seriously and the bad guys flee in their muscle car. Danny pursues them on foot, cutting through yards until he miraculously catches up and uses a conveniently nearby boat to stop the car in its tracks. When the girlfriend attempts to flee the scene on foot, she is cut down by a speeding truck (which apparently didn’t see the boat blocking the street) and killed.
Of course, Miles blames Danny for the death of his girlfriend and plots an elaborate revenge. A year later Miles escapes from prison and kidnaps Danny’s girlfriend Molly (Scott). He informs Danny that he will have to perform a number of elaborate and dangerous tasks. If he fails at any one of them, Molly will die. With the FBI getting involved, New Orleans will turn into a battleground between these two deadly men.
Director Renny Harlin has quite an action pedigree, with such action classics as Die Hard 2 and The Long Kiss Goodnight. While this isn’t to the level of those big-budget films, it’s actually quite satisfactory as an energetic modern action film. Cena, better known as a WWE wrestler, proves himself to be a promising action star, much in the same way The Rock did at a similar point in his career. Does he have the same kind of talent as Dwayne Johnson? I’m not sure, but if he wants to pursue the acting thing I think he could have a future ahead of him. He’s got the charisma and the looks to do it.
The problem here is that the script tends to ask you to take an awful lot on faith. Several of the situations really stretch the boundaries of believability to the breaking point which is a bit of a shame because if they had actually toned it down just a hair this would have been a better movie.
As it is its solid, mindless entertainment that fits the bill if you’re looking to 86 your troubles from your head for a couple of hours. While most of the cast (which is largely made up of unknowns) does a credible job, it is Cena that shoulders the load on his broad muscled frame and he does it with panache. Given the negative reviews this generated, I was pleasantly surprised at how good this movie was. Don’t expect another Die Hard movie but don’t expect a direct-to-video Dolph Lundgren disaster either.
WHY RENT THIS: Cena proves himself to be a decent action star. Harlin is an expert at staging action sequences and these are top-notch.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The script is a bit on the brainless side. Some of the sequences really stretch believability a bit.
FAMILY VALUES: Lots of violence, lots of action but if you feel comfortable letting your child watch Cena on a weekly WWE program, this ought to be fine too.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Cena is the first wrestler to appear in more than one WWE Films release.
NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There is a featurette on Cena’s stunts in which we learn that the wrestler is deathly afraid of heights. Who knew? On the Blu-Ray edition, there are a couple of viral videos about the film.
FINAL RATING: 5/10
TOMORROW: Awake
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