"Walking Tall"

[S-T]

I actually wrote this review a while ago, but thought you all (especially anyone from the Oratory) would be interested.

SPOILERS INCLUDED.

To avoid the spoilers, do not read further.

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"Know your role and shut your mouth!"

I rented Walking Tall starring Dwayne Johnson, who is better known as "The Rock" in World Wrestling Entertainment. It's rather silly, in my opinion, to list Johnson in the credits by his character's name in WWE.

Johnson's acting is not quite as good as it was in The Rundown, and it was not all that good there either. Johnson's best performance was in The Scorpion King. Johnson is a much better actor than "Hulk Hogan", but that isn't saying much. Professional wrestlers seem to think that because they act for a living, they can seamlessly transition into movies, but professional wrestling is a far different type of acting than movies.

In any case, Chris Vaughn (Johnson's character) returns from duty in the Army to find that the lumber mill, the main source of employment in the county for years, is closed and a casino has taken its place. The casino is corrupt, of course, with the workers cheating in order to take money from customers. Vaughn discovers this, and winds up being gutted and left for dead.

He survives, of course, and when he goes to file charges the Sheriff won't help him. Seething over that, Vaughn discovers his nephew overdosed on drugs purchased from the casino's security officers, the same ones that almost killed him. Vaughn proceeds to trash the casino with a 4x4 and "lay the smack down" on the security guards. Then he goes to jail.

In a really dumb scene, Vaughn admits his guilt buts tries to convince the jury that he was justified. He opens his shirt to show gruesome scars from when he was gutted and promises to run for Sheriff if he is acquitted. He is acquitted (naturally) and then cleans up the town.

So we have a jury acquitting the hero of the story after he ADMITS acting as a vigilante. This is by far the least believable part of the movie. If Charles Bronson's character had done that in Death Wish, maybe he would not have had to move around so much to avoid the law.

Overall, Walking Tall is decent for an action film, but it certainly was not anything special. WWE seems to think that WWE fans will go see the movie because "The Rock" is in it, but they forget that the audience of movie fans is much, much larger than the audience of WWE fans. They would be better off working to make a good movie to get movie fans interested in WWE. While Walking Tall is far better than previous WWE/WWF efforts like No Holds Barred (one of the worst movies ever made) it is nothing special.

Grade: C-, barely missing a D+.

[TheRetreater]

i feel like it is important to mention that this is based on a true story

given i don't know where creative process begins and I don't care enough to really find out.

but to call a scene in something based on a true story unbelievable and hold it against it may be ill-guided unless you find out if in the actual tale a similar thing occured. This is in reference to the Jury scene you speak of, of course

but yeah, it's a bad movie. If it was a good movie i might have cared enough to do the research.

[S-T]

but to call a scene in something based on a true story unbelievable and hold it against it may be ill-guided unless you find out if in the actual tale a similar thing occured.

It was a remake of a movie based on the story of Buford Pusser. I admittedly don't know much about the man himself, but many of these movies are a lot closer to "inspired by" than "based on".