TMG Scale 5.0
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Billy Bob Thorton and Tom Berenger (wasted on a bit role)
I left the theatre and just said to myself, “Yeah, okay. Did I remember to call my leaf raking guy?” That’s how excited, moved and inspired I was. I understand and appreciate what the writers were going for. They went for a sort of Walking Tall (the 2004 remake also starring Johnson) meets Death Wish (1974). They just missed.
Johnson plays a likable thug whose brother was killed after their gang was ratted out and double-crossed during a bank heist years before. No name, they just call him “the driver.” He tears up Nevada in a very cool, black Chevy SS and proceeds to kill off his brother’s murderers vigilante style while his face is plastered all over every television station. Ten days before retirement, Billy Bob (referred to simply as “the cop”) arranges to get on the case. Billy Bob has his reasons, motives and inner deamons to contend with. We expect no less from Billy Bob. Meanwhile, someone has hired a professional hit man with self esteem issues to kill off Johnson. Bullets fly, car tires squeal and scumbags die.
Don’t get me wrong, this movie had potential. It is kind of fun at times to see scumbags get their eternal reward courtesy of of short barrel 357. But Dwayne Johnson is just no Charles Bronson and the script is at best, mediocre. This movie simply needed someone like Quentin Tarantino brought in to add some realism and spice. It needed some more pulp. He may need the money but Tom (“Death? What do you all know about death?”) Berenger was treated like a two bit day actor in this film. He deserves better.
TMG will offer two free movie tickets and drinks to any two women that can claim (with a straight face mind you) that they liked this film. The same goes to any two guys who can claim this was “really a good movie.” This offer is limited to normal people and does not apply to anyone who watched it in a red eye flight from New York to Los Angeles or while stranded for four days on a broken down Carnival crusie ship with nothing to consume but canned spam and house vodka. Fair is fair. Some Sean Penn movies might even be tolerable under such circumstances. Maybe not.